Designing Group Music Improvisation Systems:A Decade of Design Research in Education

In this article we discuss Designing Group Music Improvisation Systems (DGMIS), a design education activity that investigates the contemporary challenge design is facing when we go beyond single-user single-artefact interactions. DGMIS examines how to design for systems of interdependent artefacts and human actors, from the perspective of improvised music. We have explored this challenge in design research and education for over a decade in different Industrial Design education contexts, at various geographic locations, in several formats. In this article we describe our experiences and discuss our general observations, corrective measures, and lessons we learned for (teaching) the design of novel, interactive, systemic products

Beat my bass, pluck my drum

Beating a bass, plucking a drum -- new systems of instruments make it possible. In this paper we describe recent research into networked musical instruments for group improvisation; instruments that reciprocally influence each other's behaviour, making, contrary to what we are used to, the interaction with them unpredictable, unstable, out of control, but highly interesting and exciting for both musician and the audience. This research will not only result in different ways of musical expression, but also teach us lessons about how to design open systems. We describe our theoretical starting points, the set-up of our research case, as well as one example design: a two-stringed synthesizer controller and an augmented percussive instrument that influence each other's tonal characteristics. With these instruments collaboration is a must. There is no 'i' in networ