Pocket Gamelan: a J2ME environment for just intonation
Greg Schiemer, Kenny Sabir, Mark Havryliv
Faculty of Creative Arts, University of Wollongong
[email protected]
[email protected]
mhavryliv @hotmail.com
Abstract
This paper describes on-going exploration of tuning systems
through development of mobile instruments appropriate for
the audition and performance of music composed in just
intonation tunings. The project is a response to a
transformation in computer music brought about through
the introduction of wireless technologies and is motivated
by a desire to enable performance of music based on just
intonation using hand-held instruments played by large
numbers of non-expert players. Handheld technology offers
the promise of new forms of musical interaction between
people with development of musical applications focused on
new modes of group expression that involve non-expert
performance. The project seeks to take advantage of the
global availability of this technology yet retain a tuning
vocabulary that represents the legacy of many musical
epochs and traditions..
1 Introduction
The Pocket Gamelan project seeks to develop a software
prototype for a set of mobile musical instruments based on
the java programming language using a mobile technology
known as Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME). This technology is
used in hand-held appliances such as palm pilots and mobile
phones and allows communication between a web server
and multiple clients.
The principal motivation for the Pocket Gamelan project
has been a desire to develop an extensible interface that will
support performance of music in various tuning systems.
The diversity of available tuning systems, as reflected in the
theoretical writings of Partch (1949) Chalmers (1993) and
Wilson (1961, 1967, 1975a, 1975b, 1986), calls for such an
extensible interface.
Aims. The aims of the Pocket Gamelan project are:
to create a prototype network of mobile instruments for
performing music free of the tuning constraints associated
with conventional music performance interfaces;
to use this prototype to explore and extend current
developments in tuning theory using new performance
paradigms.
The prototype mobile instrument network will be one in
which each mobile unit is easy to play, quick to learn and
produces audible tones that are microtonally tunable. Each
unit will be battery powered and able to take advantage of
new developments in mobile digital computing. Each unit is
a hand-held sound source that is played by pressing buttons.
Players are free to move each sound source while
performing.
The difference between music created using MIDI
systems and music created using this technology is the
degree of mobility and autonomy that a mobile instrument
gives to each player. The extent to which this affects
performance of music is limited only by the ways in which
performers are allowed to move as part of the performance
and the kinds of spaces where a performance is presented.
Whereas desktop computing tends to concentrate the
means of producing music in the hands of a single user,
mobility offered by this technology introduces new
possibilities for musical interaction between members of an
ensemble. 'Gamelan', in the title, is a musical metaphor for
this kind of group interaction.
2 Mobile performance environment
In performance scenarios associated with the Pocket
Gamelan project, a musical ensemble consists of large
numbers of mobile phone handsets each operated
independently by a single user. Each unit functions either as
a control device, a sound source or some combination of
both. Musical applications for mobile devices are initially
developed in a java desktop development environment
running under Windows XP.
Program code is first developed on the desktop. It is then
loaded into each mobile unit, along with the wave-tables
required for audio synthesis, prior to performance. In effect
the mobile handset becomes a generic hardware platform for
software musical instrument applications which define the
musical functionality of the handset. To implement
additional performance scenarios this functionality can be
redefined by developing new software instruments.
Tuning associated with these software instruments is
implemented using the variable sampling increment
technique with interpolation. At the time of writing the code
is currently simulated using java desktop development tools.
Proceedings ICMC 2004
