Listening and remembering: networked off-line improvisation for four commuters

This paper analyses the experience of the networked off-line improvisation 'Listening and Remembering', a performance for four commuters using voices and sounds from the Mexico City and Paris metros. It addresses the question: how can an act of collective remembering, inspired by listening to metro soundscapes, lead to the creation of networked voice- and sound-based narratives about the urban commuting experience? The networked experience is seen here from the structural perspective (telematic setting), the sonic underground context, the ethnographic process that led to the performance, the narratives that are created in the electro-acoustic setting, the shared acoustic environments that those creations suggest, and the technical features and participants' responses that prevent or facilitate interaction. Emphasis is placed on the participants' status as non-performers, and on their familiarity with the sonic environment, as a context that allows the participation of non-musicians in the making of music through telematically shared interfaces, using soundscape and real-time voice. Participants re-enact their routine experience through a dialogical relation- ship with the sounds, the other participants, themselves, and the experience of sharing: a collective memory

Improvising with the threnoscope: integrating code, hardware, GUI, network, and graphic scores

Live coding emphasises improvisation. It is an art practice that merges the act of musical composition and performance into a public act of projected writing. This paper introduces the Threnoscope system, which includes a live coding micro-language for drone-based microtonal composition. The paper discusses the aims and objectives of the system, elucidates the design decisions, and introduces in particular the code score feature present in the Threnoscope. The code score is a novel element in the design of live coding systems allowing for improvisation through a graphic score, rendering a visual representation of past and future events in a real-time performance. The paper demonstrates how the system’s methods can be mapped ad hoc to GUI- or hardware-based control

A gesturally controlled improvisation system for piano

This paper was presented at the Live Interfaces conference 2012. Copyright @ 2012 The Authors.This paper presents a gesturally controlled, live-improvisation system, developed for an experimental pianist and used during a performance at the 2011 International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. We describe the gesture-recognition architecture used to recognize the pianist’s real-time gestures, the audio infrastructure developed specifically for this piece and the core lessons learned over the process of developing this performance system

Building Mobile Instruments for Improvised Musical Performance

This paper explores an approach to building electronic musical instruments for use in improvised music that I have found to be particularly effective for developing flexible, dynamic, and versatile instruments well adapted to the improvised context, and a resultant set of suites of solo improvised character pieces. The lessons learned from this research can be useful beyond the scope of this particular instrument design philosophy. In Part I, I present the foundations of my approach to instrument design, based on my past experience and the technological environment in which electronic music has developed. I discuss the values that guide me in the creation of instruments for use in improvised performance, and describe the development tools iRTcmix and Nikl, and Dixey, an instrument I have created with those tools and hardware devices using the Apple iOS operating system. Part II discusses the musical issues related to the creation of Character Weekend, a set of solo recordings produced with the tools described in Part I

Gestural control of sonic swarms: Composing with grouped sound objects

This paper outlines an alternative controller designed to diffuse and manipulate a swarm of sounds in 3- dimensional space and discusses the compositional issues that emerge from its use. The system uses an algorithm from a nature-derived model describing the spatial behavior of a swarm. The movement of the swarm is mapped in the 3- dimensional space and a series of sound transformation functions for the sonic agents are implemented. The notion of causal relationships is explored regarding the spatial movement of the swarm and sound transformation of the agents by employing the physical controller as a performance, compositional and diffusion tool

Enhanced reality live role playing

Live role-playing is a form of improvisational theatre played for the experience of the performers and without an audience. These games form a challenging application domain for ubiquitous technology. We discuss the design options for enhanced reality live role-playing and the role of technology in live role-playing games