Abstract: When he was a child, [Tod Machover]'s mother, a music teacher, would send the boy and his friends on scavenger hunts for objects with which to make interesting sounds, then organized chamber music sessions with their found instruments. Nine years ago, when he became a parent, Machover realized just how exceptional that sort of activity was. Struck by the paucity of organized, creative music- making for young children, Machover embarked on a three-year, $3 million international project he calls "Toy Symphony," which in New York culminates next Saturday with a free concert performed by professionals and kids in the Winter Garden of the World Financial Center. In the meantime, groups of New York City public school children are busily learning to use Machover's toys: an antennaed rhythm box called a "beatbug," a squishy "shaper" that produces a range of digital honks and rustles, and Hyperscore, the kid composer's first software.

"My goal," Machover said, "was to put together a suite of musical activities that children can do with other children and with grown- ups and that could end up in a concert." Some of the pieces that children produce in these weeks will be performed by a professional orchestra, along with Machover's own "Toy Symphony" for beatbugs, shapers and strings.

1) Newsday Photo / Bruce Gilbert - Composer-educator- designer Machover, with [Thomas Reeves], listens to Thomas' work through headphones. Tod Machover Photos - 2) The shaper above, produces sound when it is squished: 3) right, beatbug rhythm boxes that resemble beetles.

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If Hollywood were looking to fill the role of the Instrument Inventor - a kid- like scientist-composer who spends his days concocting, say, computerized pillows that make music when squeezed - a casting agent would be delighted to stumble onto Tod Machover. With an impish smile and hair elaborately ungroomed into a cloud of electric curls, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor was recently pacing - bopping might be more accurate - around a roomful of computers in the Cooper-Hewitt, National Museum of Design, watching 7- and 8-year-old composers at work. He crouched by a terminal and put on a set of headphones to see what one small boy, Thomas Reeves, had wrought.

"That's really nutty," he chortled, pointing to the screen. "I'm dying to hear this one, with the big blob on the end." The boy pressed "Play," and the two of them shared a knowing laugh. "It's always a good sign when you giggle at your own motive," Machover said. Half an hour into his musical career, Thomas was writing a piece.

Machover is gently trying to revolutionize the way kids learn to make music. The technology of traditional instruments ensures that their first contact will be fraught with frustration and ugly sounds, and years can pass before fledgling musicians have enough control to be creative. Digital technology makes it possible to invert that order and put invention before motor skills. Thanks to computers - and a team of graduate students in MIT's Media Lab - music can become plastic stuff, as easily manipulated, resilient and limitless as a block of clay.

"The fact that music deals with our inner lives and emotions, but doesn't do so literally, makes it perfect for kids. It uses so many different parts of the brain - reasoning ability, emotional centers, kinesthetic skills - it gives your personality a workout."

When he was a child, Machover's mother, a music teacher, would send the boy and his friends on scavenger hunts for objects with which to make interesting sounds, then organized chamber music sessions with their found instruments. Nine years ago, when he became a parent, Machover realized just how exceptional that sort of activity was. Struck by the paucity of organized, creative music- making for young children, Machover embarked on a three-year, $3 million international project he calls "Toy Symphony," which in New York culminates next Saturday with a free concert performed by professionals and kids in the Winter Garden of the World Financial Center. In the meantime, groups of New York City public school children are busily learning to use Machover's toys: an antennaed rhythm box called a "beatbug," a squishy "shaper" that produces a range of digital honks and rustles, and Hyperscore, the kid composer's first software.

"My goal," Machover said, "was to put together a suite of musical activities that children can do with other children and with grown- ups and that could end up in a concert." Some of the pieces that children produce in these weeks will be performed by a professional orchestra, along with Machover's own "Toy Symphony" for beatbugs, shapers and strings.

Machover has been inventing musical tools and writing pieces for themfor 20 years. In 1991, he developed the "hypercello," in which the traditional instrument acquired the ability to produce an essentially limitless palette of sounds. In 1996, he produced "Brain Opera," a walk-in arcade full of booths, screens, knobs and headgear that made sounds in response to a gesture, a touch or a word. But this is his first project aimed specifically at children.

"One of the good things about technology is that you can design an instrument or an interface that is suited to anyone's skill level, whether it's Yo-Yo Ma or just an ordinary person. You can find a way to get around physical limitations."

Take the beatbug, which both flummoxed and fascinated a team of Cooper-Hewitt tour guides for the museum's current National Design Triennial. Six of the white plastic beetle- shaped toys lay on a table, linked by cables to a computer. The staffers, obviously hesitant to touch an object in a museum, gingerly picked up the toys and did as they were instructed. One person beat out a rhythm on the bug's carapace then tapped a button, sending the freshly recorded phrase leaping to another bug. That bug flashed in time to the music, and as, the player bent one metal antenna-like prong, the looped rhythm changed pitch. Bending the other prong caused a flurry of quick notes to ornament the skeleton rhythm. The player tapped the button, and the transformed motive bounced to somebody else, which began a new layer on the same pulse. The people invented while the machine kept them steady, and soon the novices were gleefully spinning out an endless rope of interwoven rhythms.

Kevin Jennings, a "Toy Symphony" team member, pointed out how arduous it would be to produce that experience without the aid of microchips. "Even a simple drum circle, you want the kids two hours a week for six months before they're proficient enough to do things together."

For now, beatbugs and shapers exist only in limited quantities and require an elaborate apparatus to use. But Fisher-Price and its parent company, Mattel, have invested heavily in the MIT Media Lab and they are exploring ways to develop Machover gadgets into marketable toys. It's not hard to imagine the day when kids congregate in school hallways with their wireless beatbugs, shooting rhythms back and forth in a permanent floating jam session.

Getting children to listen and play is the bugaboo of orchestras and opera companies, which are gripped by the prospect of their audiences eventually withering away. But most musical organizations can function only as educational boutiques, bringing small numbers of kids face-to-face with professional performers. Anyone can download Hyperscore, though, and Machover hopes to have a set of workbooks available for schools and families within the next few months. Fisher-Price plans to integrate Hyperscore into a commercial toy by the end of the year.

The implications are momentous. Children who begin their musical lives by battling resistant instruments, or who are dissuaded from doing so at all, are likely to become adults who think of music as a formidable fortress of specialists. Machover's toys give kids a way to have fun with music and develop a passion before having to worry about how hard it is. That won't make learning an instrument any easier, but it might reinforce a sense of purpose.

An earlier electronic revolution - the one that filled garages everywhere with portable amplifiers, cheap keyboards and electric guitars - spawned a generation of amateur musicians. This one has the potential to do the same, except that it deals with materials far more sophisticated than the basic four-chord pop song.

To Machover, the best technology makes complex interactions easier, and he would love nothing better than to manufacture a key to the physical world's intricate, inherent musicality. His vision is a school principal's nightmare - a gizmo that would draw music out of pencils, chairs and cups. "My dream is to invent a set of little devices that you could clip onto any object and turn it into an instrument by making it vibrate in various ways. It's the idea from my childhood of finding something that produces an interesting sound and then using it. I've come full circle."

WHERE&WHEN: New York premiere of Tod Machover's "Toy Symphony," plus works by children, takes place next Saturday at the Winter Garden of the World Financial Center, Manhattan. A Family Day, with public workshops and demonstrations, follows next Sunday. Admission to both events is free.For more information, call 212-945-0505, or go to www.worldfinancial center.com.

Caption: 1) Newsday Photo / Bruce Gilbert - Composer-educator- designer Machover, with Thomas Reeves, listens to Thomas' work through headphones. Tod Machover Photos - 2) The shaper above, produces sound when it is squished: 3) right, beatbug rhythm boxes that resemble beetles.

(Copyright Newsday Inc., 2003)