The Augmentalist: Enabling Musicians to Develop Augmented Musical Instruments Dan Newton and Mark T. Marshall Interaction and Graphics Group University of Bristo TEI’11

OUTLINE INTRODUCTION SYSTEM DESIGN IMPLEMENTATION THE AUGMENTALIST IN USE: AN EXAMPLE SETUP DISCUSSION CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION New instruments played by their designers The audience often have no experience a lack of musicality in the performances the performer to design based on their existing traditional musical instrument

SYSTEM DESIGN Musicians to attach sensors the their instruments Which the musicians are familiar A system – simple, possible Musician can concentrate on the effect – they wish to create

IMPLEMENTATION Phidgets MacBook Pro Max/MSP programming environment Logic Pro 9

THE AUGMENTALIST IN USE: AN EXAMPLE SETUP(1/3) total 10 musicians have spent over 60 hours using the system Included guitarists, DJs, bassists, saxophonists and vocalists Choose a guitarist for example

THE AUGMENTALIST IN USE: AN EXAMPLE SETUP(2/3) 1.Most people have some familiarity 2.focus of some research in terms of sensing 3.commonly make use of sound processing and effects

THE AUGMENTALIST IN USE: AN EXAMPLE SETUP(3/3) 1.An accelerometer was mounted to the guitar neck 2.A slider was placed on the body of the guitar 3.An infrared distance sensor was attached to the body of the guitar

DISCUSSION 1.Musicians as developers 2.Focus on technology 3.Potential for exploration and mastery 4.Transferability of developed instruments 5.Creativity and enjoyment

DISCUSSION(1/5) (Musicians as developers) Musicians who know the most about their instruments Resulted in mappings the musicians found to be interesting, useful and musical Have been not previously seen in the literature

DISCUSSION(2/5) (Focus on technology) Musicians would concentrate on the gesture and the sound, rather than the technology Sensor technology to be the weakest link in the system Must alter the users’ perception of such limitations of the sensors

DISCUSSION(3/5)(Potential for exploration and mastery) Wessel and Wright – – “low entry fee” together with “no ceiling on virtuosity” – Simple to begin playing, exploration and mastery. Based around existing musical instruments Commonly expressed the belief – Control, make best use -> exploration, creativity

DISCUSSION(4/5)(Transferability of developed instruments) One musician developed – discussed on the literature. The new guitarist found it easy to begin performing using any of these mappings It took only a few minutes of practice

DISCUSSION(5/5) (Creativity and enjoyment) Did the musicians enjoy using the system? – we ask each musicians to fill out a short questionnaire – every musician gave the system a maximum rating of 5 (Very High)

CONCLUSION The main goal – digital musical instruments through augmenting their existing musical instruments Augmentalist allows musicians to explore – sharing and exchanging – innovative performance and interaction