Holland, Simon; Marshall, Paul; Bird, Jon; Dalton, Sheep; Morris, Richard; Pantidi, Nadia; Rogers, Yvonne and Clark, Andy
(2009).
Running up Blueberry Hill: Prototyping whole body interaction in harmony space.
In: Proceedings of the 3rd international Conference on Tangible and Embedded interaction, 16-18 February 2009, Cambridge, UK.
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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.
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