Abstract

This demonstration paper describes the conception, design and implementation of a hardware/software musical interface and its use in performance with a group of dancers and a choreographer. It investigates the design and development of such interfaces in the light of these experiences and presents material from two of these custom interfaces. The work examines the nature of digital interfaces for musical expression through the use of multiple sensors, the data from which is used to generate and control multiple musical parameters in software. This enables levels of expression and diversity not generally available using conventional electronic interfaces, the latter frequently being limited to the direct control of a limited number of musical parameters. The combination of hardware design and algorithmic manipulation combined with the expressive potential of dance and embodied movement is of particular interest. Reflecting links between embodied movement and expression in live performance, the feedback between form and function is also considered, as are collaborations with sculptors to develop and enhance the physical behaviour and visual appearance of these devices.

Highlights

  • There has never been a time when the creation of music has been so interdisciplinary

  • The author has made contact with a number of sculptors who are interested in collaborating in this project – most obviously Douglas Jeal, (Jeal, 2009)

  • A sketch of a potential interface constructed from coloured perspex and utilising, amongst other phenomena, light and colour as a primary interface: in the sketch, the level and nature of the light would be varied by the interaction between ambient lighting and that reflected from the dancers costumes which are themselves abundantly decorated and floridly designed

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Summary

INTRODUCTION

There has never been a time when the creation of music has been so interdisciplinary. Developments in hardware and software have led to significant activity in this area, frequently prompted by the frustration electronic musicians have felt with the purely digital interface they have been using (for the most part devotedly) for the last twenty or so years. MIDI-based synthesisers were enthusiastically forsaken in favour of machines that used digital recordings as the basis for their sound. When computer memory and processing power became cheap and fast enough, these synthesisers were themselves shelved

CONCEPTION
Gaggle
SuperCollider
Old and new musical instruments
Interaction with Gaggle and Wired
Metaphor and interaction
Other considerations
FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS AND CONCLUSIONS
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