"Finger-painting" Music Makers

Yamaha has developed a small, hand-held digital instrument for those interested in creating techno music. It's called the Tenori-on and it is a handheld keyboard that allows the user to create songs with the touch screen. In terms of digital sound recording, it's really very advanced--you can "visualize" the music as you're creating it with the LED lights in the display, and you can hook up a digital MIDI keyboard to it to add to the 253 different sounds built in. Although it's not coming out in the US yet (it's from Japan), the UK version is going on sale soon and if it does well, Yamaha will release the $1200 product on this side of the pond, too.