Two Shared Rapid Turn Taking Sound Interfaces for Novices

This paper presents the results of user interaction with two explorative music environments (sound system A and B) that were inspired from the Banda Linda music tradition in two different ways. The sound systems adapted to how a team of two players improvised and made a melody together in an interleaved fashion: Systems A and B used a fuzzy logic algorithm and pattern recognition to respond with modifications of a background rhythms. In an experiment with a pen tablet interface as the music instrument, users aged 10-13 were to tap tones and continue each other's melody. The sound systems rewarded users sonically, if they managed to add tones to their mutual melody in a rapid turn taking manner with rhythmical patterns. Videos of experiment sessions show that user teams contributed to a melody in ways that resemble conversation. Interaction data show that each sound system made player teams play in different ways, but players in general had a hard time adjusting to a non-Western music tradition. The paper concludes with a comparison and evaluation of the two sound systems. Finally it proposes a new approach to the design of collaborative and shared music environments that is based on ''listening applications''

Everyone can be composer today – full stop or question mark?

The incredible tempo of technological development has been incomparable with the rapidity of paradigm shifts in art, particularly over the past 25 years of the "digital age". Approaching technology using its surface control level as an easy tool for art creation (due to lack of time while exploring it, or lack of knowledge, or just due to superficiality) is not often challenging enough to compete with core traditions of art craft across creative disciplines. Due to the rising complexity of user interfaces technologies require either more knowledge, experience and specialization, or provide their users with simplifying solutions. Technologies also do not represent only pool of tools to be used. From media point of view, they gradually incorporate history of knowledge and its continuity. Using piece of technology to make music does not necessarily mean we understand how music is created on its structural level. We become composers thanks to knowledge embodied in the technology itself. Thanks to preset-based-technologies everyone can become composer today reaching quite complex results. In my presentation I am addressing issues of craft and virtuosity in contemporary music composition and performance and I am looking for ways how deep music knowledge can be taught and developed through use of technologies

On the playing of monodic pitch in digital music instrument

This paper addresses the issue of controlling monodic pitch in digital musical instruments (DMIs), with a focus on instruments for which the pitch needs to be played with accuracy. Indeed, in many cultures, music is based on discrete sets of ordered notes called scales, so the need to control pitch has a predominant role in acoustical instruments as well as in most of the DMIs. But the freedom of param- eter mapping allowed by computers, as well as the wide range of interfaces, opens a large variety of strategies to control pitch in the DMIs. Without pretending to be exhaustive, our paper aims to draw up a general overview of this subject. It includes: 1) a review of interfaces to produce discrete and/or continuous pitch 2) a review of DMI maker strategies to help the performer for controlling easily and accurately the pitch 3) some developments from the authors concerning interfaces and mapping strategies for continuous pitch control 4) some comparisons with acoustical instruments. At last, a Max/MSP patch —publically available— is provided to support the discussion by allow- ing the reader to test some of the pitch control strategies reviewed in this paper

Sounds of Unseen Boundaries: A Digital Portfolio Dissertation of Seven Original Compositions for Data-driven Instruments

Digital Portfolio Dissertation files include: descriptive text document; README; zipped computer files; and 7 performance videos linked for streaming at this URL on University of Oregon Panopto service: https://uoregon.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Sessions/List.aspx#folderID=a45a8cd1-312d-45d7-9079-afbe01839275 . Archival copies of videos have been preserved by the UO Libraries.Sounds of Unseen Boundaries: A Digital Portfolio Dissertation of Seven Original Compositions for Data-driven Instruments is presented as a Digital Portfolio Dissertation of seven compositions for data-driven instruments. The entirety of the Digital Portfolio Dissertation consists of video documentation of each piece, software and score material used in performance, and a text document serving as an accompanying analytical guide to each composition and its respective data-driven instrument. This document contains definitions related to the conceptual frameworks of data-driven instruments, an analysis of the design and implementation of each instrument, data mapping strategies used, compositional structures, and issues and practices in their performance. The compositions included in this Digital Portfolio Dissertation are: unFamiliar, Within the Tallest Tree, Things Look Different Here, A Need to Be Free, A Musical Interpretation on the Findings of Voyager 2, family, friends, and Virtualability

Interaction Design for Digital Musical Instruments

The thesis aims to elucidate the process of designing interactive systems for musical performance that combine software and hardware in an intuitive and elegant fashion. The original contribution to knowledge consists of: (1) a critical assessment of recent trends in digital musical instrument design, (2) a descriptive model of interaction design for the digital musician and (3) a highly customisable multi-touch performance system that was designed in accordance with the model. Digital musical instruments are composed of a separate control interface and a sound generation system that exchange information. When designing the way in which a digital musical instrument responds to the actions of a performer, we are creating a layer of interactive behaviour that is abstracted from the physical controls. Often, the structure of this layer depends heavily upon: 1. The accepted design conventions of the hardware in use 2. Established musical systems, acoustic or digital 3. The physical configuration of the hardware devices and the grouping of controls that such configuration suggests This thesis proposes an alternate way to approach the design of digital musical instrument behaviour – examining the implicit characteristics of its composite devices. When we separate the conversational ability of a particular sensor type from its hardware body, we can look in a new way at the actual communication tools at the heart of the device. We can subsequently combine these separate pieces using a series of generic interaction strategies in order to create rich interactive experiences that are not immediately obvious or directly inspired by the physical properties of the hardware. This research ultimately aims to enhance and clarify the existing toolkit of interaction design for the digital musician

Computed fingertip touch for the instrumental control of musical sound with an excursion on the computed retinal afterimage

In this thesis, we present an articulated, empirical view on what human music making is, and on how this fundamentally relates to computation. The experimental evidence which we obtained seems to indicate that this view can be used as a tool, to systematically generate models, hypotheses and new technologies that enable an ever more complete answer to the fundamental question as to what forms of instrumental control of musical sound are possible to implement. This also entails the development of two novel transducer technologies for computed fingertip touch: The cyclotactor (CT) system, which provides fingerpad-orthogonal force output while tracking surface-orthogonal fingertip movement; and the kinetic surface friction transducer (KSFT) system, which provides fingerpad-parallel force output while tracking surface-parallel fingertip movement. In addition to the main research, the thesis also contains two research excursions, which are due to the nature of the Ph.D. position. The first excursion shows how repeated and varying pressing movements on the already held-down key of a computer keyboard can be used both to simplify existing user interactions and to implement new ones, that allow the rapid yet detailed navigation of multiple possible interaction outcomes. The second excursion shows that automated computational techniques can display shape specifically in the retinal afterimage, a well-known effect in the human visual system.Computer Systems, Imagery and Medi