Andante: Walking Figures on the Piano Keyboard to Visualize Musical Motion

Xiao Xiao, Basheer Tome, and Hiroshi Ishii

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract:

We present Andante, a representation of music as animated characters walking along the piano keyboard that appear to play the physical keys with each step. Based on a view of music pedagogy that emphasizes expressive, full-body communication early in the learning process, Andante promotes an understanding of the music rooted in the body, taking advantage of walking as one of the most fundamental human rhythms. We describe three example visualizations on a preliminary prototype as well as applications extending our examples for practice feedback, improvisation and composition. Through our project, we reflect on some high level considerations for the NIME community.

Citation:

Xiao Xiao, Basheer Tome, and Hiroshi Ishii. 2014. Andante: Walking Figures on the Piano Keyboard to Visualize Musical Motion. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1178987

BibTeX Entry:

  @inproceedings{xxiao2014,
 abstract = {We present Andante, a representation of music as animated characters walking along the piano keyboard that appear to play the physical keys with each step. Based on a view of music pedagogy that emphasizes expressive, full-body communication early in the learning process, Andante promotes an understanding of the music rooted in the body, taking advantage of walking as one of the most fundamental human rhythms. We describe three example visualizations on a preliminary prototype as well as applications extending our examples for practice feedback, improvisation and composition. Through our project, we reflect on some high level considerations for the NIME community.},
 address = {London, United Kingdom},
 author = {Xiao Xiao and Basheer Tome and Hiroshi Ishii},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.1178987},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 month = {June},
 pages = {629--632},
 publisher = {Goldsmiths, University of London},
 title = {Andante: Walking Figures on the Piano Keyboard to Visualize Musical Motion},
 url = {http://www.nime.org/proceedings/2014/nime2014_467.pdf},
 year = {2014}
}