Collaborated with JMW, Microsoft promotes its new product in an interesting way and this time, cityscapes accompany the new spot.

What does Stockholm sound like? To promote its Surface Pro 4 in Sweden, Microsoft gives the answer. To create a “symphony” based on the sounds of the city, Eirik Røland tours around the city using the tablet and pen. JMW equipped Røland, the composer, with a Surface Pro 4 and asked him to walk around the city and collect sounds that give musical inspiration. The range of different noises of wind, birds, water, bells, people and almost everything turns into a melody.

Røland was able to write down notations with the Surface pen by using the Windows 10 application StaffPad. The trick here is that the handwritten musical notes were automatically converted to a typeset score, to playback, edit, print and share.

Let’s watch the spot, here:

What does a city sound like in music? Eirik Røland, says:

For a long time I’ve wanted to compose a piece of music inspired by Stockholm. You can’t do that from behind a desk. You have to listen to the details and the overall sound. Catch the sounds, find the tunes, and rhythms can become music.

The tagline of the ad is ‘Create where you can be inspired.‘ You can also listen to the entire piece of Eirik Røland’s Sound of Stockholm, here.

This innovative technique is very practical to write music: transfer sounds and tunes via a tablet.