research-article

Rich gesture, reduced control: the influence of constrained mappings on performance technique

Authors:

Robert H. Jack,

Andrew McPhersonAuthors Info & Claims

MOCO '17: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Movement Computing

Article No.: 15, Pages 1 - 8

https://doi.org/10.1145/3077981.3078039

Published: 28 June 2017 Publication History

Abstract

This paper presents an observational study of the interaction of professional percussionists with a simplified hand percussion instrument. We reflect on how the sound-producing gestural language of the percussionists developed over the course of an hour session, focusing on the elements of their gestural vocabulary that remained in place at the end of the session, and on those that ceased to be used. From these observations we propose a model of movement-based digital musical instruments as a projection downwards from a multidimensional body language to a reduced set of sonic features or behaviours. Many factors of an instrument's design, above and beyond the mapping of sensor degrees of freedom to dimensions of control, condition the way this projection downwards happens. We argue that there exists a world of richness of gesture beyond that which the sensors capture, but which can be implicitly captured by the design of the instrument through its physicality, constituent materials and form. We provide a case study of this model in action.

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Cited By

Morrison LMcPherson A(2024)Entangling Entanglement: A Diffractive Dialogue on HCI and Musical InteractionsProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642171(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642171
Caspe FMcPherson ASandler M(2023)FM Tone Transfer with Envelope LearningProceedings of the 18th International Audio Mostly Conference10.1145/3616195.3616196(116-123)Online publication date: 30-Aug-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3616195.3616196
Pigrem JMcpherson ABryan-Kinns NJack R(2022)Sound -> Object -> Gesture: Physical Affordances of Virtual MaterialsProceedings of the 17th International Audio Mostly Conference10.1145/3561212.3561230(59-66)Online publication date: 6-Sep-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3561212.3561230
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Rich gesture, reduced control: the influence of constrained mappings on performance technique
1. Applied computing
  1. Arts and humanities
    1. Sound and music computing
2. Human-centered computing
  1. Interaction design
    1. Interaction design theory, concepts and paradigms

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cover image ACM Other conferences

MOCO '17: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Movement Computing

June 2017

206 pages

ISBN:9781450352093

DOI:10.1145/3077981

Conference Chair:
Marco Gillies,
Editor:
Kiona Niehaus

Copyright © 2017 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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University of Surrey

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 28 June 2017

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Research-article
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Refereed limited

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Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

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MOCO '17

MOCO '17: 4th International Conference on Movement Computing

June 28 - 30, 2017

London, United Kingdom

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Overall Acceptance Rate 85 of 185 submissions, 46%

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Cited By

Morrison LMcPherson A(2024)Entangling Entanglement: A Diffractive Dialogue on HCI and Musical InteractionsProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642171(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642171
Caspe FMcPherson ASandler M(2023)FM Tone Transfer with Envelope LearningProceedings of the 18th International Audio Mostly Conference10.1145/3616195.3616196(116-123)Online publication date: 30-Aug-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3616195.3616196
Pigrem JMcpherson ABryan-Kinns NJack R(2022)Sound -> Object -> Gesture: Physical Affordances of Virtual MaterialsProceedings of the 17th International Audio Mostly Conference10.1145/3561212.3561230(59-66)Online publication date: 6-Sep-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3561212.3561230
Benito Temprano AMcPherson A(2021)A TMR Angle Sensor for Gesture Acquisition and Disambiguation on the Electric GuitarProceedings of the 16th International Audio Mostly Conference10.1145/3478384.3478427(256-263)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3478384.3478427
Mice LMcPherson A(2021)Embodied Cognition in Performers of Large Acoustic Instruments as a Method of Designing New Large Digital Musical InstrumentsPerception, Representations, Image, Sound, Music10.1007/978-3-030-70210-6_37(577-590)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70210-6_37
Moro GMcPherson A(2020)Performer Experience on a Continuous Keyboard InstrumentComputer Music Journal10.1162/comj_a_0056544:2-3(69-91)Online publication date: 27-Jul-2020
https://doi.org/10.1162/comj_a_00565
Berdahl EBlandino MBernhaupt RMueller FVerweij DAndres JMcGrenere JCockburn AAvellino IGoguey ABjørn PZhao SSamson BKocielnik R(2020)Modeling a Musician Performing on a Digital Musical Instrument as a Communications ChannelExtended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3334480.3382841(1-7)Online publication date: 25-Apr-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3334480.3382841
McPherson ATahıroğlu K(2020)Idiomatic Patterns and Aesthetic Influence in Computer Music LanguagesOrganised Sound10.1017/S135577181900046325:1(53-63)Online publication date: 4-Mar-2020
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355771819000463
Armitage JMcPherson A(2019)Bricolage in a hybrid digital lutherie contextProceedings of the 14th International Audio Mostly Conference: A Journey in Sound10.1145/3356590.3356604(82-89)Online publication date: 18-Sep-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3356590.3356604
Morreale FArmitage JMcPherson A(2018)Effect of Instrument Structure Alterations on Violin PerformanceFrontiers in Psychology10.3389/fpsyg.2018.024369Online publication date: 6-Dec-2018
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02436
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