Digital Music Performance for Mobile Devices Based on Magnetic Interaction

Abstract

Digital music performance requires a high degree of interaction with input controllers that can provide fast feedback on the user's action. One of the primary considerations of professional artists is a powerful and creative tool that minimizes the number of steps required for the speed-demanding processes. Nowadays, mobile devices have become popular digital instruments for musical performance. Most of the applications designed for mobile devices use touch screen, keypad, or accelerometer as interaction modalities. In this paper, we present a novel interface for musical performance that is based on a magnetic interaction between a user and a device. The proposed method constitutes a touchless interaction modality that is based on the mutual effect between the magnetic field surrounding a device and that of a properly shaped magnet. Extending the interaction space beyond the physical boundary of a device provides the user with higher degree of flexibility for musical performance which, in turn, can open doors to a wide spectrum of new functionalities in digital music performance and production.