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ILMLI2012NON-COCHLEAR SOUND
____ LJUBLJANA _9.-14. SEPTEMBER
VUZIK: A PAINTING GRAPHIC SCORE INTERFACE FOR
COMPOSING AND CONTROL OF SOUND GENERATION
Aura Pon
Interactions Lab
Department of Music
University of Calgary
Calgary, Canada
aapon@ucalgary.ca
David Eagle
Department of Music
University of Calgary
Calgary, Canada
eagle@ucalgary.ca
Junko Ichino
Graduate School of
Information Systems
University of Electro communications
Tokyo, Japan
ichino@is.uec.ac.jp
Nicolas d'Alessandro
Institute for New Media Art
Technology
University of Mons
Mons, Belgium
nicolas @dalessandro.be
Ehud Sharlin
Interactions Lab
Dept.of Computer Science
University of Calgary
Calgary, Canada
ehud@cpsc.ucalgary.ca
Sheelagh Carpendale
Interactions Lab
Dept.of Computer Science
University of Calgary
Calgary, Canada
sheelagh@cpsc.ucalgary.ca
ABSTRACT
Vuzik is an interface for creating and visualizing music
through painting gestures on a large interactive surface.
It can subsequently act as a graphical score embedded
with control messages for facilitating its sonic
realization via any networked sound generator or
instrument, and serve as a visual reference of the music
to possible performers and audience. We present an
overview of our motivations, design and implementation
of the current prototype of Vuzik and discuss its various
application in music education settings and computer
music performance. We aspire for Vuzik to offer the
creator, performer and audience an alternative insight
into music's construction through graphic score
visualization, and open up new ways to create and
realize musical ideas.
1. INTRODUCTION
Throughout history, music's intelligibility has benefitted
from the tangibility offered by multimodal renderings
perceivable by sight and other senses beyond hearing.
Visual representations of music such as traditional music
notation, graphical scores [8], or musical inspired
artwork [7] give this ephemeral medium a more
permanent form through which to study, preserve, and
recreate it [2]. The temporal nature of music is
sometimes a barrier to visualizing, analyzing, and
approaching the composition of music even for those
who are musically educated. We believe that if one
could not only visually see or touch music, but also
freeze it in time and hold its representation in stasis for
more prolonged examination and contemplation, then
one could gain greater understanding of its structure.
The design of musical interfaces that leverage a person's
existing understanding of basic concepts about the
physical world would help build a usable understanding
of music's structure and could encourage more intuitive
music exploration and creation, in similar reasoning to
that posed as a case for Reality-Based Interaction [6].
Mapping features of music to physical properties of
objects that can also be experienced through a person's
non-auditory senses like sight and touch may make
certain abstract aspects of music more concrete and
therefore more intuitive to manipulate. Likewise,
relating musical features to certain kinaesthetic actions
may further embody musical understanding within
existing familiar motor skills.
Towards a goal of fostering music understanding and
creativity through multisensory tangibility, we created
the Vuzik interface (Figure 1) which is inspired by these
past classic visualization efforts. Vuzik is, foremost, an
interface designed to empower people to make
electronic music using painting gestures and visual
representations of music on a large vertical interactive
surface [11]. By giving music a lasting form by way of a
visualization that people can see in addition to hear that
effectively transcends its temporal nature, music can
become more accessible and tangible, and therefore
more intelligible. Beyond this graphical score facility,
Vuzik extends its capabilities one step further to allow its
score to control and trigger aspects of its sonic
realization through network control messages, which
enables versatile sound generation, whether through an
automated sound engine or performer-controlled
instruments. The latter scenario has been found to offer
unique capabilities in expanding the live performance
capabilities of these instruments, as will be discussed.
We designed Vuzik to be simple and playful enough
for a child to use, yet also to have capabilities to afford
meaningful, complex musical experiences for more
experienced musicians. We hope that the Vuzik
composing interface could open up new creative
possibilities for composers and artists that would be
engaging for the audience as well. This paper outlines
our implementation efforts and describes the current
prototype. We also present several evaluation efforts and
applications of Vuzik, and outline our coming future
efforts.
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