DMI Apprenticeship: Sharing and Replicating Musical Artefacts

Luis Zayas-Garin, Jacob Harrison, Robert Jack, and Andrew McPherson

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

• Year: 2021
• Location: Shanghai, China
• Article Number: 26
• DOI: 10.21428/92fbeb44.87f1d63e (Link to paper)
• PDF link
• Presentation Video

Abstract:

The nature of digital musical instruments (DMIs), often bespoke artefacts devised by single or small groups of technologists, requires thought about how they are shared and archived so that others can replicate or adapt designs. The ability for replication contributes to an instrument’s longevity and creates opportunities for both DMI designers and researchers. Research papers often omit necessary knowledge for replicating research artefacts, but we argue that mitigating this situation is not just about including design materials and documentation. Our way of approaching this issue is by drawing on an age-old method as a way of disseminating knowledge, the apprenticeship. We propose the DMI apprenticeship as a way of exploring the procedural obstacles of replicating DMIs, while highlighting for both apprentice and designer the elements of knowledge that are a challenge to communicate in conventional documentation. Our own engagement with the DMI apprenticeship led to successfully replicating an instrument, Strummi. Framing this process as an apprenticeship highlighted the non-obvious areas of the documentation and manufacturing process that are crucial in the successful replication of a DMI.

Citation:

BibTeX Entry:

  @inproceedings{NIME21_26,
 abstract = {The nature of digital musical instruments (DMIs), often bespoke artefacts devised by single or small groups of technologists, requires thought about how they are shared and archived so that others can replicate or adapt designs. The ability for replication contributes to an instrument’s longevity and creates opportunities for both DMI designers and researchers. Research papers often omit necessary knowledge for replicating research artefacts, but we argue that mitigating this situation is not just about including design materials and documentation. Our way of approaching this issue is by drawing on an age-old method as a way of disseminating knowledge, the apprenticeship. We propose the DMI apprenticeship as a way of exploring the procedural obstacles of replicating DMIs, while highlighting for both apprentice and designer the elements of knowledge that are a challenge to communicate in conventional documentation. Our own engagement with the DMI apprenticeship led to successfully replicating an instrument, Strummi. Framing this process as an apprenticeship highlighted the non-obvious areas of the documentation and manufacturing process that are crucial in the successful replication of a DMI.},
 address = {Shanghai, China},
 articleno = {26},
 author = {Zayas-Garin, Luis and Harrison, Jacob and Jack, Robert and McPherson, Andrew},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.21428/92fbeb44.87f1d63e},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 month = {June},
 presentation-video = {https://youtu.be/zTMaubJjlzA},
 title = {DMI Apprenticeship: Sharing and Replicating Musical Artefacts},
 url = {https://nime.pubpub.org/pub/dmiapprenticeship},
 year = {2021}
}