Harmony and Technology Enhanced Learning

New technologies offer rich opportunities to support education in harmony. In this chapter we consider theoretical perspectives and underlying principles behind technologies for learning and teaching harmony. Such perspectives help in matching existing and future technologies to educational purposes, and to inspire the creative re-appropriation of technologies

Experimental Music and Collaboration: Developing Artistry Through Performance Practice

This project locates collaboration and collaborative performance as a potential site for artistic growth. This study analyzes six collaborative projects: composed pieces for electric guitar accompanying a staged performance of collaged texts, an audio-visual installation, the preparation of several short pieces to accompany choreographed dances, a 90-minute soundtrack to a performance mixed live, an ongoing improvisational duo, and a live visuals performance to accompany Sunburned Hand of the Man at Duke University. It traces the growth of my artistry while also providing a method for both doing and writing about collaboration. In addition, it offers a model for understanding collaborative compensation and evaluating collaborative structures. The study begins in 2015 at the beginning of my master’s degree coursework and ends in 2022 with the completion of this dissertation. Each chapter analyzes a unique performance I contributed to and provides a brief overview of the project, discusses my background with my collaborator, reviews any planning work, maps the influences that informed my creative choices, offers a description of my methods, recalls my memories of the performance event, and ends with a reflection on the collaborative process. The conclusion of this study explores collaboration across power dynamics and offers several models for collaborative structures and possibilities for payment and compensation both in academic and in popular and professional contexts

Mobile-Based Interactive Music for Public Spaces

With the emergence of modern mobile devices equipped with various types of built-in sensors, interactive art has become easily accessible to everyone, musicians and non-musicians alike. These efficient computers are able to analyze human activity, location, gesture, etc., and based on this information dynamically change, or create an artwork in realtime. This thesis presents an interactive mobile system that solely uses the standard embedded sensors available in current typical smart devices such as phones, and tablets to create an audio-only augmented reality for a singled out public space in order to explore the potential for social-musical interaction, without the need for any significant external infrastructure

Space Time Exploration of Musical Instruments

Musical instruments are tools used to generate sounds for musical expression. Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) musical instruments create sounds that may be spatially disjointed from the instrument controls. Spatial audio processing can be used to position the Extended Reality (XR) musical instruments and their corresponding sounds in the same space. This dissertation investigates novel ways of combining spatial reverb models to improve the naturalness of XR musical instruments. Seven spatial reverb systems, combinations of a shoebox spatial reverb model, a raytracing spatial reverb model, and measured directional room impulse response convolution reverb, were compared in a pilot study. A novel hybrid system of synthetic early reflections and directional room impulse responses was preferred for naturalness when tested over headphones with three instruments created by the author: AR electric guitar, AR drumset, and VR Singing Kite. This research culminated in a concert, Spherical Sound Search, which showcased the preferred hybrid system, the three XR musical instruments, and four re-contextualized spatial audio effects (spatial looping, spatial delay, spatial feedback, and spatial compression). The three pieces in the concert explored different aspects of XR modalities and presented the novel system with spatial audio effects to a larger audience by rendering to an octophonic loudspeaker layout

Design Strategies for Adaptive Social Composition: Collaborative Sound Environments

In order to develop successful collaborative music systems a variety of subtle interactions need to be identified and integrated. Gesture capture, motion tracking, real-time synthesis, environmental parameters and ubiquitous technologies can each be effectively used for developing innovative approaches to instrument design, sound installations, interactive music and generative systems. Current solutions tend to prioritise one or more of these approaches, refining a particular interface technology, software design or compositional approach developed for a specific composition, performer or installation environment. Within this diverse field a group of novel controllers, described as ‘Tangible Interfaces’ have been developed. These are intended for use by novices and in many cases follow a simple model of interaction controlling synthesis parameters through simple user actions. Other approaches offer sophisticated compositional frameworks, but many of these are idiosyncratic and highly personalised. As such they are difficult to engage with and ineffective for groups of novices. The objective of this research is to develop effective design strategies for implementing collaborative sound environments using key terms and vocabulary drawn from the available literature. This is articulated by combining an empathic design process with controlled sound perception and interaction experiments. The identified design strategies have been applied to the development of a new collaborative digital instrument. A range of technical and compositional approaches was considered to define this process, which can be described as Adaptive Social Composition. Dan Livingston

Playing in the Virtual Arena: Avatars, Publicity, and Identity Reconceptualized through Virtual Worlds and Computer Games

In many respects, the commercial and social interactions within virtual worlds are essentially the same as those interactions conducted face-to-face or over less engrossing technologies, however, the immersive nature of the virtual world redefines the nature of the experience. Because virtual worlds mimic their bricks-and-mortar counterparts, they exhibit commercial attributes unlike those of plays, television shows, or motion pictures. To the extent that there is commerce conducted within the medium, the historic separation between commercial conduct and expressive speech must be reconceptualized. In the first instance, such legal line drawing will necessarily be done with crude tools, so this article suggests that just as the theater and motion picture industries turned to collective bargaining agreements to provide a more refined set of rules for professional content development, the entertainment content created in virtual worlds will benefit from similar collective bargaining solutions to legally difficult conundrums. The article provides an overview of virtual worlds and the legal framework for the regulation of content ownership; addresses the tension between the speech and property rights associated with the participants in this new art form, identifying what the law suggests and how it should evolve through case law and legislation; and suggests the steps that can be taken through private ordering collective bargaining arrangements to further clarify the protections for professionals associated with this developing new medium

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

Stretchable music : a graphically rich, interactive composition system

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 1998.Includes bibliographical references (p. 120-122).by Peter W. Rice, Jr.S.M