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

Holland, Simon, Marshall, Paul, Bird, Jon, Dalton, Nick, 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. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, pp. 93-98. ISBN 978-1-60558-493-5

Preview

Text 2009HollandTEI.pdf - Accepted Version Download (1MB) | Preview

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.

Actions (login required)

View Item

Downloads