Adapting & Openness: Dynamics of Collaboration Interfaces for Heterogeneous Digital Orchestras

Florent Berthaut, and Luke Dahl

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract:

Advanced musical cooperation, such as concurrent control of musical parameters or sharing data between instruments,has previously been investigated using multi-user instruments or orchestras of identical instruments. In the case of heterogeneous digital orchestras, where the instruments, interfaces, and control gestures can be very different, a number of issues may impede such collaboration opportunities. These include the lack of a standard method for sharing data or control, the incompatibility of parameter types, and limited awareness of other musicians’ activity and instrument structure. As a result, most collaborations remain limited to synchronising tempo or applying effects to audio outputs. In this paper we present two interfaces for real-time group collaboration amongst musicians with heterogeneous instruments. We conducted a qualitative study to investigate how these interfaces impact musicians’ experience and their musical output, we performed a thematic analysis of inter-views, and we analysed logs of interactions. From these results we derive principles and guidelines for the design of advanced collaboration systems for heterogeneous digital orchestras, namely Adapting (to) the System, Support Development, Default to Openness, and Minimise Friction to Support Expressivity.

Citation:

Florent Berthaut, and Luke Dahl. 2020. Adapting & Openness: Dynamics of Collaboration Interfaces for Heterogeneous Digital Orchestras. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4813241

BibTeX Entry:

  @inproceedings{NIME20_15,
 abstract = {Advanced musical cooperation, such as concurrent control of musical parameters or sharing data between instruments,has  previously  been  investigated  using  multi-user  instruments  or  orchestras  of  identical  instruments.   In  the  case of heterogeneous digital orchestras, where the instruments, interfaces, and control gestures can be very different, a number of issues may impede such collaboration opportunities. These include the  lack  of  a  standard  method  for  sharing data or control, the incompatibility of parameter types, and limited  awareness  of  other  musicians’  activity  and  instrument  structure.   As  a  result,  most  collaborations  remain limited to synchronising tempo or applying effects to audio outputs. In this paper we present two interfaces for real-time group collaboration amongst musicians with heterogeneous instruments.   We  conducted  a  qualitative  study  to  investigate how these interfaces impact musicians’ experience and their musical output, we performed a thematic analysis of inter-views,  and  we  analysed  logs  of  interactions.   From  these results  we  derive  principles  and  guidelines  for  the  design of advanced collaboration systems for heterogeneous digital orchestras, namely Adapting  (to)  the  System, Support  Development, Default  to  Openness, and Minimise  Friction to Support Expressivity.},
 address = {Birmingham, UK},
 author = {Berthaut, Florent and Dahl, Luke},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.4813241},
 editor = {Romain Michon and Franziska Schroeder},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 month = {July},
 pages = {77--82},
 presentation-video = {https://youtu.be/jGpKkbWq_TY},
 publisher = {Birmingham City University},
 title = {Adapting & Openness: Dynamics of Collaboration Interfaces for Heterogeneous Digital Orchestras},
 url = {https://www.nime.org/proceedings/2020/nime2020_paper15.pdf},
 year = {2020}
}