This thesis is about interactive music, a musical experience that involves participation from the listener but is itself a composed piece of music and the Interactive Music Systems (IMSs) that create these experiences, such as a sound installation that responds to the movements of its audience. Some IMSs are brief marvels commanding only a few seconds of attention. Others engage those who participate for considerably longer. Our goal here is to understand why this difference arises and how we may then apply this understanding to create better interactive music experiences. I present a refined perspective of interactive music as an exploration into the relationship between action and sound. Reasoning about IMSs in terms of how they are subjectively perceived by a participant, I argue that fundamental to creating a captivating interactive music is the evolving cognitive process of making sense of a system through interaction. I present two new theoretical tools that provide complementary contributions to our understanding of this process. The first, the Emerging Structures model, analyses how a participant's evolving understanding of a system's behaviour engages and motivates continued involvement. The second, a framework of Perceived Agency, refines the notion of `creative control' to provide a better understanding of how the norms of music establish expectations of how skill will be demonstrated. I develop and test these tools through three practical projects: a wearable musical instrument for dancers created in collaboration with an artist, a controlled user study investigating the effects of constraining the functionality of a screen-based IMS, and an interactive sound installation that may only be explored through coordinated movement with another participant. This final work is evaluated formally through discourse analysis. Finally, I show how these tools may inform our understanding of an oft-cited goal within the field: conversational interaction with an interactive music system.

This PhD portfolio focuses on research across interactive computer music composition and live performance involving instrumental players and instrumental sounds. It examines methods of disjoining original connections between performers’ actions, the instrument as sound sources, and musical outcomes, and also methods of reconstructing new connections between them via electronic intermediation. At the same time, the portfolio of creative works presented in this study proposes multiple performing styles and explores innovative electroacoustic music as well as its context. Through this portfolio, the composer invites readers to her original sound world and individual musical concepts, which are informed by visually-related ideas such as imaginary views, colours, scenes of a story, and art paintings, alongside their associated titles.

This thesis focuses on the design and evaluation of interactive music systems that enable non-experts to experience collaborative music-making in public set- tings, such as museums, galleries and festivals. Although there has been previous research into music systems for non-experts, there is very limited research on how participants engage with collaborative music environments in public set- tings. Informed by a detailed assessment of related research, an interactive, multi-person music system is developed, which serves as a vehicle to conduct practice-based research in real-world settings. A central focus of the design is supporting each player's individual sense of control, in order to examine how this relates to their overall playing experience. Drawing on approaches from Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and interac- tive art research, a series of user studies is conducted in public settings such as art exhibitions and festivals. Taking into account that the user experience and social dynamics around such new forms of interaction are considerably in u- enced by the context of use, this systematic assessment in real-world contexts contributes to a richer understanding of how people interact and behave in such new creative spaces. This research makes a number of contributions to the elds of HCI, interactive art and New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME). It provides a set of de- sign implications to aid designers of future collaborative music systems. These are based on a number of empirical ndings that describe and explain aspects of audience behaviour, engagement and mutual interaction around public, in- teractive multi-person systems. It provides empirical evidence that there is a correlation between participants' perceived level of control and their sense of cre- ative participation and enjoyment. This thesis also develops and demonstrates the application of a mixed-method approach for studying technology-mediated collaborative creativity with live audiences.

No description available.

No description available.

The purpose of this essay has been to research about adaptive music by analyzing and designing a music system which could handle adaptive music for our game A Story About My Uncle. This essay also goes through the thought  process and techniques used when composing adaptive music, for example vertical re-orchestration and horizontal re-sequencing. For designing the system, I used an object oriented analysis and design approach, utilizing two of its models, the use case model and the class model. With the help of these models and a few system requirements based on the music composition, I was able to design a system which handles the composed music as planned. Although the system works in-game, there are still some issues that should be resolved to perfect the adaptive music experience. / Syftet med uppsatsen har varit att forska om adaptiv musik genom att analysera och designa ett system som kan hantera adaptiv musik till vårt spel A Story About My Uncle. Denna uppsats går också igenom tankeprocessen och tekniker som används när man komponerar adaptive music, som t.ex. vertikal re-orkestrering och horisontel re-sekvensering. För att designa systemet använde jag mig av två modeller inom objekt orienterad analys och design, fallmodellen och klassmodellen. Med hjälp av dessa två modeller och ett fåtal systemkrav baserad på den komponerade musiken kunde jag designa ett system som hanterar musiken som det hade varit tänkt. Även om systemet fungerar i spelet, så finns det fortfarande några problem som borde lösas för att fullända det adaptiva musiksystemet

Snow Spell is an interactive composition for erhu, flute, cello, piano, and Max/MSP interactive computer music system. This one-movement piece, Snow Spell, is intended to depict the beauty of a snow scene by presenting four different impressions of snow envisioned by the composer through music. The definition, history, and significance of interactive music are explored. Various modes of interactivity to control signal processing modules, and technical considerations for signal routing and level control in the interactive computer music system are also explored. Chinese music elements in Snow Spell including pentatonic scales, glissandi, and quotations from the Chinese folk tune River of Sorrow are investigated.

Music is commonly applied in art and entertainment to enhance the emotional experience. In video-games and other non-linear mediums this task must be achieved dynamically at run-time, as the timeline of events is unknown in advance. Different techniques have been developed to solve this issue, but most commercial applications still rely on pre-rendered audio. In this study, I investigate using a Computer System for Expressive Music Performance (CSEMP) to dynamically shape a computer performance of a pre-composed track to a small platforming game. A prototype environment utilising the KTH Rule System was built and evaluated through semistructured interviews and observations with 7 participants. The results suggest that changes in the musical performance can successfully reflect smaller changes in the experience such as character movement, and are less effective for sound effects or more dramatic changes, such as when the player is engaging in combat or when the player loses. All participants preferred the interactive soundtrack over a non-interactive version of the same soundtrack. / Musik används ofta som ett komplement i konst och underhållning för att förstärka den känslomässiga upplevelse. I datorspel och andra icke-linjära medier måste musiken ta på sig denna rollen dynamiskt, eftersom det inte går att veta hur händelserna kommer utfalla sig i förväg. För att lösa detta problem har det utvecklats olika tekniker, men dom flesta är fortfarande baserade på digitala inspelningar. I denna studie utforskar jag användningen av ett "Computer Systen for Expressive Musig Performance" (CSEMP) för att dynamiskt forma datorns framträdande av en lineär komposition till ett enkelt plattformsspel. En prototyp baserat på systemet "KTH Rule System" utvecklades och utvärderades genom semistrukturerade intervjuer och observationer med 7 deltagare. Resultaten visar att förändringar i uppspelningen lyckades spegla mindre förändringar i spelet, såsom hur en spelkaraktär rör sig, och var mindre effekt som ljudeffekter och för större förändringar, såsom när spelaren är i fara eller spelet är över. Alla deltagare föredrog det interaktiva ljudspåret över en icke-interaktiv version i det samma ljudspåret.

No description available.

New technological advancements have resulted in a shift of medium. Music interaction has moved from physical media such as CDs and MP3-players to digital music services on the Internet. Vast catalogues of music is today available from any device with Internet access for either a monthly cost or even in some cases for free. Even though many users subscribe for the music they consume the music industry still experience an uncertain economy. New interaction opportunities and new design principles have derived from the new medium. According to users some functions are more important than others, some functions are even missing. Which are these? Are the users’ needs equivalent to the web development and the current supply of function the services offer? With vast consumption and immense establishment together with the tie in economic factors and technological development music streaming services is a given media technological phenomenon. This study’s purpose is to analyze three important components in the case of music streaming services: the supply, the user’s perspective and the position according to the web development. In order to increase the understanding of these parts this study has completed an inventory of current supply of functions in seven music streaming services and a questionnaire to conclude the user’s perspective. The study uses the theory of Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 to examine current position of the services in web development. Possibly in this way the study might discover strengths and weaknesses in the supply of the music streaming services and thereupon contribute to suggestion of improvement and functions. Functions which might help the development of music streaming services and increase more paying consumers. This study show that the current supply of functions music streaming services offer is in general equivalent to the users’ need. However, the users don’t value social functions as an important part in music streaming services. They value a great catalogue of songs and great accessibility with commercial free use. The supply of functions doesn’t differ a lot from service to service. Spotify is the leading services both in quantity of functions and in number of users. Regarding the position of functions most functions is placed within Web 2.0. Thus, the user show an indication of the importance of accessibility which suit the vision of the ubiquitous and pervasive webb of Web 3.0. Even though the theory of Web 2.0 was coined 15 years ago the interactive music web service is mostly a product of Web 2.0. Despite of the satisfaction in supply, in terms of sustainability, it might always be a value to continue to examine the user’s need, the industry’s demands and the technological development to reach the highest form of contentment from all parts.