Running up Blueberry Hill: Prototyping whole body interaction in harmony space

Simon Holland, Paul Marshall, Jon Bird, Nick Dalton, Richard Morris, Nadia Pantidi, Yvonne Rogers, Andy Clark

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

23 Citations (Scopus)
5 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Musical harmony is considered to be one of the most abstract and technically difficult parts of music. It is generally taught formally via abstract, domain-specific concepts, principles, rules and heuristics. By contrast, when harmony is represented using an existing interactive desktop tool, Harmony Space, a new, parsimonious, but equivalently expressive, unified level of description emerges. This focuses not on abstract concepts, but on concrete locations, objects, areas and trajectories. This paper presents a design study of a prototype version of Harmony Space driven by whole body navigation, and characterizes the new opportunities presented for the principled manipulation of chord sequences and bass lines. These include: deeper engagement and directness; rich physical cues for memory and reflection, embodied engagement with rhythmic time constraints; hands which are free for other simultaneous activities (such as playing a traditional instrument); and qualitatively new possibilities for collaborative use.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction
Place of PublicationNew York
PublisherACM
Pages93-98
ISBN (Print)978-1-60558-493-5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2009
EventProceedings of the 3rd international Conference on Tangible and Embedded interaction -
Duration: 1 Jan 2009 → …

Conference

ConferenceProceedings of the 3rd international Conference on Tangible and Embedded interaction
Period1/01/09 → …

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