Embodied gestures

This is a book about musical gestures: multiple ways to design instruments, compose musical performances, analyze sound objects and represent sonic ideas through the central notion of ‘gesture’. The writers share knowledge on major research projects, musical compositions and methodological tools developed among different disciplines, such as sound art, embodied music cognition, human-computer interaction, performative studies and artificial intelligence. They visualize how similar and compatible are the notions of embodied music cognition and the artistic discourses proposed by musicians working with ‘gesture’ as their compositional material. The authors and editors hope to contribute to the ongoing discussion around creative technologies and music, expressive musical interface design, the debate around the use of AI technology in music practice, as well as presenting a new way of thinking about musical instruments, composing and performing with them

Embodied gestures

This is a book about musical gestures: multiple ways to design instruments, compose musical performances, analyze sound objects and represent sonic ideas through the central notion of ‘gesture’. The writers share knowledge on major research projects, musical compositions and methodological tools developed among different disciplines, such as sound art, embodied music cognition, human-computer interaction, performative studies and artificial intelligence. They visualize how similar and compatible are the notions of embodied music cognition and the artistic discourses proposed by musicians working with ‘gesture’ as their compositional material. The authors and editors hope to contribute to the ongoing discussion around creative technologies and music, expressive musical interface design, the debate around the use of AI technology in music practice, as well as presenting a new way of thinking about musical instruments, composing and performing with them

Music conducting pedagogy and technology : a document analysis on best practices

This document analysis was designed to investigate pedagogical practices of music conducting teachers in conjunction with research of technologists on the use of various technologies as teaching tools. I sought to discern how conducting teachers and pedagogues are applying recent technological advancements into their teaching strategies. I also sought to understand what paths research is taking about the use of software, hardware, and computer systems applied to the teaching of music conducting technique. This dissertation was guided by four main research questions: (1) How has technology been used to aid in the teaching of conducting? (2) What is the role of technology in the context of conducting pedagogy? (3) Given that conducting is a performative act, how can it be developed through technological means? (4) What technological possibilities exist in the teaching of music conducting technique? Data were collected through music conducting syllabi, conducting textbooks, and research articles. Documents were selected through purposive sampling procedures. Analysis of documents through the constant comparative approach identified emerging themes and differences across the three types of documents. Based on a synthesis of information, I discussed implications for conducting pedagogy and made suggestions for conducting educators.Includes bibliographical references

From expressive gesture to sound: the development of an embodied mapping trajectory inside a musical interface

This paper contributes to the development of a multimodal, musical tool that extends the natural action range of the human body to communicate expressiveness into the virtual music domain. The core of this musical tool consists of a low cost, highly functional computational model developed upon the Max/MSP platform that (1) captures real-time movement of the human body into a 3D coordinate system on the basis of the orientation output of any type of inertial sensor system that is OSC-compatible, (2) extract low-level movement features that specify the amount of contraction/expansion as a measure of how a subject uses the surrounding space, (3) recognizes these movement features as being expressive gestures, and (4) creates a mapping trajectory between these expressive gestures and the sound synthesis process of adding harmonic related voices on an in origin monophonic voice. The concern for a user-oriented and intuitive mapping strategy was thereby of central importance. This was achieved by conducting an empirical experiment based on theoretical concepts from the embodied music cognition paradigm. Based on empirical evidence, this paper proposes a mapping trajectory that facilitates the interaction between a musician and his instrument, the artistic collaboration between (multimedia) artists and the communication of expressiveness in a social, musical context

Intonaspacio : comprehensive study on the conception and design of digital musical instruments : interaction between space and musical gesture

Site-specific art understands that the place where the artwork is presented cannot be excluded from the artwork itself. The completion of the work is only achieved when the artwork and place intersect. Acoustically, sound presents a natural relation with place. The perception of sound is the result of place modulation on its spectral content, likewise perception of place is dependent on the sound content of that place. Even so, the number of sound artworks where place has a primary role is still very reduced. We thus purpose to create a tool to compose inherently place-specific sounds. Inherently because the sound is the result of the interaction between place and performer. Place because is the concept that is closer to human perception and of the idea of intimacy. Along this thesis we suggest that this interaction can be mediated by a digital musical instrument - Intonaspacio, that allows the performer to compose place-specific sounds and control it. In the rst part we describe the process of construction and design of Intonaspacio - how to access the sound present in the place, what gestures to measure, what sensors to use and where to place them, what mapping to design in order to compose place-speci c sound. We start by suggesting two di erent mappings to combine place and sound, where we look at di erent approaches on how to excite the structural sound of the place, i.e., the resonant frequencies. The rst one, uses a process where the performer can record a sample of sound ambiance and reproduce it, creating a feedback loop that excites at each iteration the resonances of the room. The second approach suggest a method where the input sound is analyzed and an ensemble of the frequencies of the place with the highest amplitudes is extracted. These are mapped to control several parameters of sound e ects. To evaluate Intonaspacio we conducted an experiment with participants who played the instrument during several trial sessions. The analysis of this experiment led us to propose a third mapping that combines the previous mappings. The second part of the thesis intends to create the conditions to give longevity to Intonaspacio. Starting from the premise that a musical instrument to be classi ed as such needs to have a dedicated instrumental technique and repertoire. These two conditions were achieved first, by suggesting a gestural vocabulary of the idiomatic gestures of Intonaspacio based on direct observation of the most repeated gestures of the participants of our experiment. Second, by collaborating with two composers whom wrote two pieces for Intonaspacio.A arte situada é uma disciplina artística tradicionalmente ligada a Instalação que pretende criar obras que mantêm uma relação directa com o espaço onde são apresentadas. A obra de arte não pode assim ser separada desse mesmo espaço sem perder o significado inicial. O som pelas suas características físicas reflecte naturalmente o espaço onde foi emitido, isto é, a percepção que temos de um som resulta da combinação do som directo com as reflecções do mesmo no espaço (cujo tempo e amplitude est~ao directamente relacionados com a arquitectura do espaço). Nesta lógica a arte sonora seria aquela que mais directamente procuraria compôr som situado. No entanto, o espaço é raramente utilizado como fen omeno criativo intencional. Nesse sentido, o trabalho aqui apresentado propõem-se a investigar a possibiliade de criar sons situados. O termo Espaço está muitas vezes associado a algo de dimensões vastas e ilimitadas. Assim sendo e na óptica da arte situada, onde h a uma necessidade de criar uma relação, parece-nos que lugar é um termo mais adequado para enquadrar o nosso trabalho de investigação. O lugar, para além de representar um espaço onde se podem estabelecer relações de intimidade (proximidade), apresenta dimensões que são moldáveis consoante a percepcção e o corpo humano. Ou seja, o Homem ao deslocar-se no lugar vai ao mesmo tempo de nindo as fronteiras desse mesmo lugar. Esta visão do lugar aparece no final do século dezanove quando a filosofia começa a orientar o pensamento para uma visão mais direccionada para o Homem e para a percepcção humana. O lugar passa então a representar algo que e estabelecido na acção e pela percepcção humana, onde e possível estabelecer relações de intimidade, ao contrário dos não-lugares (sítios mais ou menos descaracterizados onde as pessoas estão só de passagem). Re-adaptámos por isso a nossa questão inicial não só para realçar esta ideia de lugar mas também para reflectir uma bi-direccionalidade perceptiva que é fulcral para a arte situada - como criar e controlar sons inerentemente localizados? Inerentemente porque para existir de facto uma interacção entre lugar e obra de arte sonora são necessárias duas condições: por um lado o som possa provocar uma resposta do lugar, e por outro, o lugar possa modificar a nossa percepcção dele mesmo. A existência de uma relação interactiva abre espaço a um novo ponto que não tinhámos considerado anteriormente e que acrescentámos a nossa nova questão, o controlo. Propomos como possível reposta a esta questão a construção de um instrumento musical digital, o Intonaspacio, que servir a de mediador desta interacção e que possibilitará ao performer a criação e o controlo de sons localizados. Primeiro poque o instrumento musical possibilita o aumento das capacidades humanas, através da extensão do corpo humano (tal como um garfo extende a nossa mão, por exemplo). Segundo, porque o instrumento musical digital pelas suas características, nomeadamente pela separação entre o sistema de controlo e o sistema de geração de som abre novas possibilidades sonoras antes excluídas por limitações mecâncias ou humanas. Podemos por isso visionar um acesso mais alargado a novas dimensões espaciais e temporais. Esta tese está dividida em duas partes, na primeira parte descrevemos a construção do Intonaspacio, e na segunda estabelecemos as bases para permitir a sua longevidade. A primeira parte começa por investigar formas de acesso ao som do lugar, composto pelo conjunto dos sons ambiente e dos sons estruturais do lugar (ressonâncias próprias resultantes da arquitectura). Pensamos que uma das possíveis formas de compôr sons localizados e precisamente através da possibilidade de poder ter os sons ambiente a gerar e a amplificar os sons estruturais. Surgem então duas novas questões de natureza técnica: Como integrar o som ambiente na obra sonora em tempo-real? Como permitir que estes excitem a resposta do espaço? Para as responder desenhámos dois mapeamentos diferentes. Um primeiro em que o performer pode gravar pequenos trechos de som ambiente que são emitidos e re-gravados criando um ciclo de feedback que excita as ressonâncias do lugar. Um segundo método onde se faz uma análise espectral ao som captado e se extrai um conjunto de frequências cujas amplitudes são as mais elevadas. Estas são posteriormente utilizadas para controlar parâmetros de vários efeitos sonoros. Colocámos ainda no instrumento um conjunto de sensores diferentes para captar o gesto do performer. Estes estão localizados em diferentes areas do esqueleto do instrumento de modo a permitir areas sensíveis maiores e consequentemente um maior n umero de graus de liberdade ao performer. Neste momento o Intonaspacio permite extrair cerca de 17 características diferentes, agrupadas em três secções - orientação, impacto e distância. Estas podem ser utilizadas para modelar o som gerado pelo instrumento através dos diferentes mapeamentos. Ambas as propostas de mapeamento foram avaliadas por um conjunto de pessoas durante um teste de utilização do Intonaspacio. Os resultados deste permitiram-nos chegar a uma terceira sugestão de mapeamento onde combinamos características de ambas as propostas anteriores. No terceiro mapeamento mantém-se a análise ao som captado pelo instrumento mas a informação recolhida e usada como material sonoro de um algoritmo de síntese aditiva. A segunda parte da tese parte de uma premissa estabelecida durante o trabalho realizado nesta tese. Um instrumento musical deve possuir uma técnica instrumental própria e um repertório dedicado para que seja considerado enquanto tal. Neste sentido e com base na observação directa dos gestos mais comuns entre participantes do nosso estudo, propusémos um vocabulário gestual dos gestos idiomáticos do Intonaspacio, ou seja, dos gestos que dependem exclusivamente da forma do próprio instrumento e da localização dos sensores na estrutura do instrumento (zonas sensíveis) e são independentes do mapeamento. Colaborámos ainda com dois compositores que escreveram duas peças musicais para o Intonaspacio. O Intonaspacio revelou ser um instrumento complexo e expressivo que possibilita aos performers incluir o lugar enquanto parâmetro criativo, no entanto apresenta ainda alguns problemas de controlo. No primeiro mapeamento, embora a integração do lugar seja sentida como mais directa e apresentando resultados sonoros mais interessantes (de acordo com os participantes do estudo), a sensação de controlo é muito baixa. Já no segundo mapeamento, embora tenha um controlo mais fácil, a presença do lugar é muito subtil e pouco perceptível. Esperamos que o terceiro mapeamento venha contribuir para solucionar este problema e aumentar o interesse no instrumento, principalmente por parte dos compositores com quem colaborámos e iremos colaborar no futuro

Composing Embodied Presence in a Chamber Music Context

This thesis comprises a body of works, and a written commentary, which can be anchored within an expanded field of chamber music. This field embraces not only notated music but also electronics, and has a strong focus on physical gesture. The extra-musical aspect of composition with physical gestures in my works pushes my compositional concerns towards interdisciplinarity, thus challenging the ontological boundaries of the musical work. In the commentary, I examine how a process of signification with extra musical elements like physical gestures as explicit material for composition could take place in chamber music. My work necessitates collaboration in order to arrive at an embodied knowledge of technique and practice where I treat physical gestures and performers’ bodies as material for composition. Through extensive collaboration I also dislocate the implicit hierarchies within the ontology of the musical work, thus motioning towards a new ontology where performers have autonomy to make creative contributions to the work. This new form of ontology already manifests itself in my music, particularly when presented in an electronic music context with gestural controllers, which I address in Chapter 3 using the metaphor of the cyborg. The interdisciplinary aspect of my compositions with physical gesture amplifies the performer’s presence on stage, thus challenging the codes associated with the ritual of Western concert music performance. Through the portfolio of works, I demonstrate gestural considerations that oscillate between two sensory concerns: the aural and the visual. At the end of my PhD, I embraced processes of listening in order to generate new instances of embodied movement in reaction to sound in an interdisciplinary collaboration with theatre performers. The insight from this project informs my current compositional process in chamber music where emphasis is placed on the perception of sound in a chamber music context. Thus, the ritual of concert performance also undergoes changes in order to satisfy the enquiry for embodiment and movement of sound in space

The Sampling of Bodily Sound in Contemporary Composition: towards an embodied analysis

Full version unavailable due to 3rd party copyright restrictions.The listener’s experience as an embodied subject is at the centre of this work. Embodied experience forms the basis for analyses of three contemporary compositions that sample bodily sound, in order to question how such works represent and mediate the body. The possible applications of this embodied methodology are illustrated through three case studies: Crackers by Christof Migone (2001), A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure by Matmos (2001) and Ground Techniques (2009) by Neil Luck. The findings of each analysis are placed within discussion of critical and theoretical concerns related to the (re)presentation, mediation and manipulation of the body both as materiality and as social construct, using, in particular, work by Hansen (2004) and Wegenstein (2006). The sampling practices of these works lead to the fragmentation of the represented bodies, in which margins between bodily interiors and exteriors are frequently crossed, bringing about a reconfiguration of the musical subject. Furthermore, the celebration of the bodily origins of these works complicates notions of recorded sound as disembodied. The analytical methodology developed in this thesis derives from a consideration of approaches in a number of fields: feminist musicology, music psychology, embodied cognition, phenomenology, music and gesture and new media theory. The sensations and affective responses of the listening body are discussed alongside an examination of how listening is shaped by processes of technological mediation. This thesis attends to both the body that is listening and the body that is listened to. I argue that it is not adequate to understand the works studied as merely representing the body, but suggest it would be more appropriate to understand the relationship between work and body as multi-faceted, conceptualising the body and recorded sound as mutually framing. This uncovers not only technology as mediation, but also the body as mediation. Finally, the case studies are used to reflect upon the limits of the embodied analysis methodology and its potential for wider application.This study was part-financed with the aid of a studentship from University College Falmouth and a grant from The Sir Richard Stapley Educational Trust

Exploring the Motivations for Building New Digital Musical Instruments

Over the past four decades, the number, diversity and complexity of digital musical instruments (DMIs) has increased rapidly. There are very few constraints on DMI design as such systems can be easily reconfigured, offering near limitless flexibility for music-making. Given that new acoustic musical instruments have in many cases been created in response to the limitations of available technologies, what motivates the development of new DMIs? We conducted an interview study with ten designers of new DMIs, in order to explore 1) the motivations electronic musicians may have for wanting to build their own instruments; and 2) the extent to which these motivations relate to the context in which the artist works and performs (academic vs. club settings). We found that four categories of motivation were mentioned most often: M1: wanting to bring greater embodiment to the activity of performing and producing electronic music; M2: wanting to improve audience experiences of DMI performances; M3: wanting to develop new sounds, and M4: wanting to build responsive systems for improvisation. There were also some detectable trends in motivation according to the context in which the artists work and perform. Our results offer the first systematically gathered insights into the motivations for new DMI design. It appears that the challenges of controlling digital sound synthesis drive the development of new DMIs, rather than the shortcomings of any one particular design or existing technology

Empowering or Boring? Discipline and authority in a Portuguese Sistema-inspired orchestra rehearsal

El Sistema orchestras may be “transformative” and produce positive changes in the lives of young participants, but there are also negative aspects to discipline and authority that may lead to exclusion. This article positions itself within the current debate on Sistema by treating symmetrically its potentially positive and negative sides. We analyse a rehearsal session during a summer camp of a Portuguese Sistema-inspired orchestra program, focusing on the production of order, the socio-musical interactions among participants, the conductor’s leadership and authority, and the young players’ postures and reactions. This is taken as a case study to discuss to what extent discipline and authority, as constituents of orchestral socialization, may be empowering to participants by developing their skills or, on the contrary, symbolically violent and boring. The rehearsal was video-recorded and watched, events were categorized, selected and analysed qualitatively. The article finishes with a critical reflection on the ambivalence and contradictions of discipline and its wider implications for education.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio