MicroJam: An App for Sharing Tiny Touch-Screen Performances

Charles Martin, and Jim Torresen

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract:

MicroJam is a mobile app for sharing tiny touch-screen performances. Mobile applications that streamline creativity and social interaction have enabled a very broad audience to develop their own creative practices. While these apps have been very successful in visual arts (particularly photography), the idea of social music-making has not had such a broad impact. MicroJam includes several novel performance concepts intended to engage the casual music maker and inspired by current trends in social creativity support tools. Touch-screen performances are limited to five seconds, instrument settings are posed as sonic ``filters'', and past performances are arranged as a timeline with replies and layers. These features of MicroJam encourage users not only to perform music more frequently, but to engage with others in impromptu ensemble music making.

Citation:

Charles Martin, and Jim Torresen. 2017. MicroJam: An App for Sharing Tiny Touch-Screen Performances. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1176334

BibTeX Entry:

  @inproceedings{cmartin2017,
 abstract = {MicroJam is a mobile app for sharing tiny touch-screen performances. Mobile applications that streamline creativity and social interaction have enabled a very broad audience to develop their own creative practices. While these apps have been very successful in visual arts (particularly photography), the idea of social music-making has not had such a broad impact. MicroJam includes several novel performance concepts intended to engage the casual music maker and inspired by current trends in social creativity support tools. Touch-screen performances are limited to five seconds, instrument settings are posed as sonic ``filters'', and past performances are arranged as a timeline with replies and layers. These features of MicroJam encourage users not only to perform music more frequently, but to engage with others in impromptu ensemble music making.},
 address = {Copenhagen, Denmark},
 author = {Charles Martin and Jim Torresen},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.1176334},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 pages = {495--496},
 publisher = {Aalborg University Copenhagen},
 title = {MicroJam: An App for Sharing Tiny Touch-Screen Performances},
 url = {http://www.nime.org/proceedings/2017/nime2017_paper0096.pdf},
 year = {2017}
}