Wow. I'm dumbfounded. Having just picked up my jaw from the floor after watching TamTam4OLPC's miniTamTam tutorial, I'm willing to bet that a good few readers will be doing the same after watching this video. What's more, this is only the tip of the iceberg. We now learn that TamTam is a software suite comprising three activities. What's more, TamTam4OLPC will be demonstrating another TamTam activity imminently.

Unless you were lucky enough to have either an a test board or one of the 750 or so XO-B1 machines, this will probably be the first time you have seen TamTam in action. As TamTam team member Nathanaël Lécaudé commented here on our Sugar UI review:

"Both TamTam and MenoSono won't work on the emulator because it requires the use of the CSound server."

According to the video, the TamTam suite consists of three applications, miniTamTam, TamTam editor and Synth Lab. This first in depth look concerns miniTamTam. According to the OLPC wiki:

miniTamTam is a small and easy version of the upcoming TamTam editor. It can do the following things:

• Play different instruments using the keyboard
• Record and playback your own sounds with the microphone
• Generate some algorithmic beats

In the demo, we see the user whizzing around, demonstrating how the XO's keyboard is used to emulate the keys on a piano (including the black keys), kicking out some beats with a variety of drum kits, sampling his own voice and playing it back and then finishing with a quick peek at Synth Lab - a cool looking synth editing activity.

The commentator signs off with the promise of more to videos to come. As well as impressing those of us with or noses pressed up against the windows on the OLPC world, these tutorials should be of use to TamTam beginners and experts alike. Owen Williams, developer of OLPC's RSS reader (a derivative of his Penguin TV software) would certainly be classified as a beginner; he noted on the video's YouTube page:

I was never able to figure out how to use tamtam before, I didn't realize I was supposed to use the keyboard :)

Seemingly at a more advanced level on TamTam is OLPC's own Jim Gettys who, according to this #sugar irc log, was bestowed the accolade of "world's first TamTam virtuoso":

(19:29:36) cjb: jg's gotten pretty expert at tamtam
(19:29:47) cjb: he has rhythm playing and different voices/pitches and stuff
(19:29:53) [...]
(19:30:00) ethrop: jg_: gets the [award] as first world tamtam virtusoso

What with the networking capabilities of the XO, we here at OLPC News await the first XO orchestral performance (and the upcoming Synth Lab tutorial) with bated breath.