Art of Record Production 2019

This paper will analyse the musical affordances of mobile technologies and apps using ‘Music Interaction’ studies (Holland et al. 2013) as a critical framework. This paper presents qualitative and analytical enquiry featuring two primary case studies collected during 2015-2017. The first case study details the perspectives of key personnel within music software company Ableton AG during the release of Ableton Link, a networked audio software protocol which allows musicians to play in-time with each other across compatible apps. This case study reveals the design choices, user testing protocols, and user feedback cycles which contribute to audio software development. The second case study documents experiences of university students performing in a mobile device ensemble. These students primarily considered themselves repertoire performers, but were asked to sustain a collaborative music creation project that culminated in an original performance involving unfamiliar networked musical apps and devices. The students reconfigured their musical identities to encompass composition, improvisation and production skills. The experience of student musicians is compared to the user testing and design protocols of software developers to identify the ways apps and mobile devices are recasting aspects of ensemble music performance including time, gesture, co-ordination and the related musical concepts such as notation and arrangement.

Reference:
Holland, S., Wilkie, K., Mulholland, P., & Seago, A. (2013). Music and Human-Computer Interaction (Springer Series on Cultural Computing). London: Springer London.