Pathfinder:a performance-game for the augmented drum-kit

Pathfinder is a performance-game for solo drummer, exploring the synergies between multiple contemporary creative practices. The work navigates between music composition, improvisation, projection/light art and game art. At its heart lies a bespoke electro-acoustic instrument, the augmented drum-kit, used not only to provide the sonic content of the work in real-time, but also as a highly expressive game controller that interacts with an instrument-specific game. The musical instrument offers a much wider range of expressive possibilities, control and tactile feedback in comparison to a traditional general-purpose game controller, and as a result it affords a more diverse and nuanced game play performance. Live electronics, lights, projections and the drum-kit all make up the performance-game’s universe, within which the performer has to explore, adapt, navigate and complete a journey

ICARUS: a game/performance for drum-kit and live electronics.

ICARUS is a game/performance for drum-kit and live electronics. The work explores improvised musical structures within an game setting, where the player navigates between five musical chapters. Each of these levels defines a particular set of musical interactions, sonorities, and performance possibilities through distinct mappings and level design. The performer is free to improvise, fail, explore, and through trial and error understand what the game rules are and complete each chapter. This results into a dynamic audio-visual performance, where while the rules are fixed, each level can be completed in multitude of ways.The game is designed specifically for the augmented drum-kit and the instrument's affordances; performance minutiae, digital electronics and musical parameters are analyzed and used as control input to the game. As the musical instrument offers a much wider range of expressive possibilities compared to a conventional game controller, the result is a musically expressive game play performance where the game acts as the mediator to the improvised drum-kit performance, while the musical output becomes the live soundtrack of the game.<br/

SPLT/SCRN:a game-piece for dueling improvisers

SPLT/SCRN is a game-piece where two improvisers play against each-other using their instruments as game controllers. The piece consists of multiple randomized mini-challenges where the performers need to improvise in order to understand what musical gestures are required from them through positive feedback from the screen. The mini-games cover a range of musical affordances, giving the advantage to both instrumentalists at different times. The instrument signal is analysed in real-time using machine learning techniques through Max/MSP, and used as control data for both the progress within the game, as well as the control of the live electronics. These parameters are then sent through OSC to the game engine Unity and control the game. In addition, the hybrid system makes use of DMX-controlled lights, which are also mapped to control data and game levels. On-screen events are accentuated through lights within the physical space, merging the physical and the digital

Pathfinder

Pathfinder is an audiovisual performance-game for solo drummer, exploring the synergies between multiple contemporary creative practices. The work navigates between music composition, improvisation, projection/light art and game art. At its heart lies a bespoke electroacoustic instrument, the augmented drum-kit, used not only to provide the sonic content of the work in real-time, but also as a highly expressive game controller that interacts with an instrument-specific game. The musical instrument offers a much wider range of expressive possibilities, control and tactile feedback in comparison to a traditional general-purpose game controller, and as a result it affords a more diverse and nuanced game play performance. Live electronics, lights, projections and the drum-kit all make up the performance-game’s universe, within which the performer has to explore, adapt, navigate and complete a journey. This research aimed to address a number of research questions such as: How can a musical game harness the expressivity of an instrumentalist’s performance practice, as opposed to commercial music games using conventional game controllers? How can improvisation, experimentation and failure be quantified and rewarded in an open world musical game scenario? The theoretical underpinnings of the work and findings are documented the upcoming article ‘Designing Musical Games for Electroacoustic Improvisation’, to be published on the upcoming Organised Sound Journal Vol.26, Number 1 Issue, by Cambridge University Press.Pathfinder was toured conferences, festivals and exhibitions internationally. These include the International Conference on Live Interfaces (2016), Brighton, New Interfaces for Musical Expression (2016), Brisbane, where the piece also won the conference’s best performance award, DiGRA/FDG (2016), Dundee, PRESS PLAY (2016), Dundee, Blank Arcade (2016), Dundee, Games Are for Everyone (2016), Edinburgh, Sonorities Festival of Contemporary Music (2016), Belfast, Edinburgh Science Festival (2017), Edinburgh, and the International Conference of Computer Music, Shanghai (2016).<br/

SPLT/SCRN:a game-piece for dueling improvisers

SPLT/SCRN is a game-piece where two improvisers play against each-other using their instruments as game controllers. The piece consists of multiple randomized mini-challenges where the performers need to improvise in order to understand what musical gestures are required from them through positive feedback from the screen. The mini-games cover a range of musical affordances, giving the advantage to both instrumentalists at different times. The instrument signal is analysed in real-time using machine learning techniques through Max/MSP, and used as control data for both the progress within the game, as well as the control of the live electronics. These parameters are then sent through OSC to the game engine Unity and control the game. In addition, the hybrid system makes use of DMX-controlled lights, which are also mapped to control data and game levels. On-screen events are accentuated through lights within the physical space, merging the physical and the digital

Icarus:a game/performance for the augmented drum-kit

ICARUS is a game/performance for the augmented drum-kit. The work explores improvised musical structures within a game setting, where the player navigates between five musical chapters. Each of these levels defines a particular set of musical interactions, sonorities, and performance possibilities through distinct mappings and level design. The performer is free to improvise, fail, explore, and through trial and error understand what the game rules are and complete each chapter. This results into a dynamic audio-visual performance, where while the rules are fixed, each level can be completed in multitude of ways

Death Ground

Death Ground is a competitive musical installation-performance game for two players. The work is designed to provide the framework for the players/participants in which to perform game-mediated musical gestures against each-other. The main mechanic involves destroying the other player’s avatar by outmaneuvering and using audio weapons and improvised musical actions against it. These weapons are spawned in an enclosed area during the performance and can be used by whoever is collects them first. There is a multitude of such power-ups, all of which have different properties, such as speed boost, additional damage, ground traps and so on. All of these weapons affect the sound and sonic textures that each of the avatars produce. Additionally, the players can use elements of the environment such as platforms, obstructions and elevation in order to gain competitive advantage, or position themselves strategically to access first the spawned power-ups. All of the game's real-time parameters, such as player speed, health, types of power-ups collected, collisions and ground materials, are used to control musical parameters driving bespoke digital musical instruments

Designing musical games for electroacoustic improvisation

This paper describes the background and motivations behind the author’s electroacoustic game-pieces Pathfinder (2016) and ICARUS (2019), designed specifically for his performance practice with an augmented drum kit. The use of game structures in music is outlined, while musical expression in the context of commercial musical games using conventional game controllers is discussed. Notions such as agility, agency and authorship in music composition and improvisation are in parallel with game design and play, where players are asked to develop skills through affordances within a digital game-space. It is argued that the recent democratisation of game engines opens a wide range of expressive opportunities for real-time game-based improvisation and performance. Some of the design decisions and performance strategies for the two instrument-controlled games are presented to illustrate the discussion; this is done in terms of game design, physical control through the augmented instrument, live electronics and overall artistic goals of the pieces. Finally, future directions for instrument-controlled electroacoustic game-pieces are suggested

ICARUS

ICARUS explores improvised musical structures within a game setting, where the player navigates between five musical chapters. Each of these levels defines a particular set of musical interactions, sonorities, and performance possibilities through distinct mappings and level design. The performer is free to improvise, fail, explore, and through trial and error understand what the game rules are and complete each chapter. This results into a dynamic audio-visual performance, where while the rules are fixed, each level can be completed in multitude of ways. The game is designed specifically for the augmented drum-kit and the instrument's affordances; performance minutiae, digital electronics and musical parameters are analyzed and used as control input to the game. As the musical instrument offers a much wider range of expressive possibilities compared to a conventional game controller, the result is a musically expressive game play performance where the game acts as the mediator to the improvised drum-kit performance, while the music becomes the live soundtrack of the game.This piece, through a series of fixed game levels explores mapping relationships between game, instrument and musical output. The fixed nature of each level aims to introduce very specific musical problems to the performer/improviser that need to be solved as part of the game mechanics in order to proceed to the next section. Some of the theoretical underpinnings of the work and findings are documented the upcoming article ‘Designing Musical Games for Electroacoustic Improvisation’, to be published on the upcoming Organised Sound Journal Vol.26, Number 1 Issue, by Cambridge University Press.The piece has been performed and exhibited internationally at CHI Creatitity &amp; Cognition (2019), San Diego and at xCoAx (2020), Graz (online), while numerous performances throughout 2020 were unfortunatelly cancelled due to C-19.

Evolving the drum-kit : frameworks and methods for diachronic live electronic performance practice and bespoke instrument design

This thesis examines performance practice with the Augmented Drum-Kit, a personal evolution of the acoustic drum-kit with the use of digital technology. The practice is investigated from three perspectives: First, through possible spatial and contextual definitions of the instrument under development, taking into consideration the inherently open-ended nature of its building blocks: percussion and the computer. Second, by exploring the composer/performer/builder’s practice paradigm in terms of musical and performative goals with such an emerging performance environment. Finally, as a diachronic practice between performer and all constituent technological parts of the composite instrument, towards the practice’s ongoing development and evolution. Using these discussions as starting points, this practice-led research proposes three intertwined novel frameworks for diachronic live electronic performance practice and bespoke instrument design. Additionally, the developed instrument itself is detailed in the form of the devised design methods, schematics, diagrams and software, addressing questions such as intuitive control, gestural uniformity, consistent electro-acoustic vocabulary, distinct instrumental character, mobility, sound diffusion and transferability. Finally, music portfolio consisting of five solo and group album recordings with the Augmented Drum-Kit is presented, while audiovisual examples from various scenarios and development stages are used to further illustrate the discussion