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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 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.

La concertina portugaise est un accordéon diatonique principalement fabriqué en Italie de manière industrielle. Depuis le Revival dans l’Alto-Minho portugais, cet instrument est devenu incontournable dans toute l’interprétation de la culture locale. Daté des début des années 1990, le Revival a vu la culture régionale se développer en partie avec l’aide de la concertina qui a su s’adapter, évoluer et influencer le répertoire local. La question centrale de cette recherche est de comprendre comment un instrument aussi répandu que l’accordéon diatonique a pu s’imposer dans une culture locale et singulière comme celle de l’Alto-Minho. Ce travail de recherche déploie une étude minutieuse du processus organologique qui a permis à l’accordéon diatonique de devenir une concertina portugaise, ainsi que l’analyse du répertoire joué par ce dernier en incluant les modes de jeux, les notions d’esthétiques des genres, les caractéristiques propres aux interprétations, aux performances et à leurs lieux d’exécutions. Il apparaît que tout le processus d'accordage qui semble aujourd'hui stabilisé est unique dans sa conception et que toutes les modifications visuelles à travers des symboles fortement identitaires sont profondément enracinées dans l’image de l’instrument. La concertina est devenue au long des années un atout culturel majeur pour la région de l'Alto-Minho. Au début adaptable, aujourd'hui adaptée, elle est passée du statut d'instrument autrefois « pratique » à « caractéristique » aujourd'hui. / Since the Revival in the Portuguese Alto-Minho, Portuguese concertina became inescapable in any interpretation of the local culture. Dated from the early 1990s, the Revival period has seen the development of the local culture with the help of the concertina which was able to adapt, evolve and affect the local repertory. The central question of this research is to understand how such an usual instrument like the diatonic accordion was able to compose with a local and singular culture such as the one from Alto Minho. This research study adresses organological question of the careful process which allowed the diatonic accordion to become a Portuguese concertina. It examines and analyses the repertoire performed by the concertina including the questions of playing techniques, aesthetics, genres, the unique characteristics of interpretations, performances in relation to their conditions and places. It appears that all the tuning process, which seems stabilized today, as well as the unique design and all its visual changes through strong symbols of identity are deeply rooted in the instrument's image. The concertina has become over the years a major cultural asset for the region of Alto-Minho. At start adaptable, now adapted, it increased instrument status from “practical” to “characteristic” today.

Le Cajón est un rituel de possession cubain dont la musique est une composante essentielle. Une approche musicologique et une étude d’anthropologie religieuse combinées permettent de mettre en avant les spécificités du Cajón au sein des différents cultes afro-cubains à La Havane. Considérant le Cajón comme un fait social total, cette recherche propose d’analyser la complexité du rituel en prenant en compte les niveaux social, musical autant que religieux. De fait, l’analyse montre que le Cajón s’inscrit de diverses manières dans la pratique religieuse des cultes afro-cubains, en dépassant même parfois le cadre. Le Cajón comprend une suite de rites (Misa, Biagué, Chamalongo, sacrifice et Toque) ancrés dans un espace sacré où chaque participant a un rôle bien identifié. L’analyse d'une séance de rituel et des interactions qui s’y produisent nous permettent de définir le rôle de la musique. Celle-ci s’adapte en permanence au rituel : elle structure le temps rituel, participe à l’induction et à la socialisation de la transe de possession. Les musiciens, comme officiants, exploitent de manière créative des systèmes mélodiques et des motifs rythmiques associés à la musique de rumba, de la makuta et du palo monte. La superposition de répertoires et de systèmes musicaux engendre une complexité sur le plan sonore. Nous parvenons à la conclusion que l’analyse musicale constitue une clef pour la compréhension du rituel. / The Cajón in Cuba is both music and a possession ritual. The combined approach of musicology and religious anthropology highlights the specificities of the Cajón. Therefore, it is possible to position the musical and ritual practice of Cajón among different Afro-Cuban cults in Havana. Considering the Cajón as total social fact, this research aims to analyze the complexity of ritual taking into account social, musical and religious aspects. The analysis shows that the Cajón can be recognized in different way among religious practices of Afro-Cuban cults, even sometimes coming out of its framework. The Cajón covers a sequence of rituals (Misa, Biagué, Chamalongo, sacrifice and Toque) embedded in a sacred space where every participant has a well-identified role. The analysis of one sequence of ritual and of interactions which happen enables the definition of the role of music. The music is permanently adapting to the ritual being one of its components: it structures the ritual time, it participates to the introduction and also to the socialization of the possession trance. The musicians as participants use in creative way melodic systems and rhythmic patterns associated to the music of rumba, makuta and palo monte. Overlapping of repertoires and musical systems generates a complexity concerning sound effects. We conclude that the musical analysis is a key for the understanding of the ritual.

Est-il possible de tester automatiquement le comportement temporisé des systèmes interactifs temps réel ? Ces travaux proposent une solution en fournissant un ensemble d’outils de test basé sur modèles pour Systèmes Musicaux Interactifs (SMI). Les SMIs doivent calculer et réagir pendant une performance musicale et ainsi accompagner les musiciens. Certains de ces SMIs peuvent être basés sur partition et doivent, dans ce cas, suivre à tout prix les contraintes temporelles imposées par le document haut-niveau appelé partition. En somme, pendant une performance, le système doit réagir en temps réel aux signaux audio venant des musiciens en suivant cette partition. Ceci demande au système une forte fiabilité temporelle et une robustesse face aux erreurs pouvant arriver en entrée du système. Hors, la vérification formelle de propriétés, comme la fiabilité temporelle avant l’exécution du système lors d’une performance, est insuffisamment traitée par la communauté de l’informatique musicale. Nous présentons dans cette thèse, la réalisation d’un ensemble d’outils de test basé sur modèles appliqué à un SMI. Il est à noter que ces outils de test ont été définis formellement dans le but de tester plus généralement le comportement temporelle des systèmes interactifs temps réel prenant en compte des évènements discrets et des durées définissables sur des échelles multiples. Pour ce résumé nous présentons rapidement l’état de l’art de nos travaux avant d’introduire la définition de notre modèle créé pour spécifier les aspects évènementiel («event-triggerred») et temporel («timed-driven») des SMIs. Ce modèle a la particularité d’être automatiquement construit depuis les conditions temporelles définies dans un document haut-niveau et peut être traduit vers un réseau d’Automates Temporisés (TA). Dans le cadre de la performance musique mixte électronique/instrumentale nous avons introduit une notion de durée multi-temps gérée par notre modèle et une génération de trace d’entrée musicalement pertinente par notre ensemble d’outils de test. Pour tester un SMI selon les différentes attentes de l’utilisateur, notre ensemble d’outils a été implémenté avec plusieurs options possibles. Parmi ces options, la possibilité de tester automatiquement, selon une approche différée ou temps réel, la conformité temporelle du SMI est proposée. En effet, l’approche différée utilise des outils de la gamme du logiciel Uppaal [44] pour générer une suite de traces d’entrées exhaustive et garantir la conformité temporelle du système testé. Il est également possible de tester une trace d’entrée particulière ou une version altérée («fuzzed») de la trace idéale définie par la partition. L’approche temps réel interprète quand-à elle directement le modèle comme des instructions de byte-code grâce à une machine virtuelle. Finalement, des expériences ont été conduites via une étude de cas sur le suiveur de partition Antescofo. Ces expériences ont permis de tester ce système et d’évaluer notre ensemble d’outils et ses différentes options. Ce cas d’étude applique nos outils de test sur Antescofo avec succès et a permit d’identifier des bogues parfois non triviaux dans ce SMI. / Can real-time interactive systems be automatically timed tested ? This work proposes an answer to this question by providing a formal model based testing framework for Interactive Music Systems (IMS). IMSs should musically perform computations during live performances, accompanying and acting like real musicians. They can be score-based, and in this case must follow at all cost the timed high-level requirement given beforehand, called score. During performance, the system must react in real-time to audio signals from musicians according to this score. Such goals imply strong needs of temporal reliability and robustness to unforeseen errors in input. Be able to formally check this robustness before execution is a problem insufficiently addressed by the computer music community. We present, in this document, the concrete application of a Model-Based Testing (MBT) framework to a state-of-the-art IMS. The framework was defined on purpose of testing real-time interactive systems in general. We formally define the model in which our method is based. This model is automatically constructed from the high-level requirements and can be translated into a network of time automata. The mixed music environment implies the management of a multi-timed context and the generation of musically relevant input data through the testing framework. Therefore, this framework is both time-based, permitting durations related to different time units, and event-driven, following the musician events given in input. In order to test the IMS against the user’s requirements, multiple options are provided by our framework. Among these options, two approaches, offline and online, are possible to assess the system timed conformance fully automatically, from the requirement to the verdict. The offline approach, using the model-checker Uppaal, can generate a covering input suite and guarantee the system time reliability, or only check its behavior for a specific or fuzzed input sequence. The online approach, directly interprets the model as byte-code instructions thanks to a virtual machine. Finally, we perform experiments on a real-case study: the score follower Antescofo. These experiments test the system with a benchmark of scores and a real mixed-score given as input requirements in our framework. The results permit to compare the different options and scenarios in order to evaluate the framework. The application of our fully automatic framework to real mixed scores used in concerts have permitted to identify bugs in the target IMS.

Multiple taxonomies and typologies related to interactive music systems have been made, focusing on improvisation, music generation and software based music agents. These studies are comprehensive but general in their analysis of the generated output and music interaction, lacking an in-depth consideration of rhythm. Based on relevant literature on rhythm perception, principles of music performance and interactive music systems, this thesis conceptualizes rhythm according to seven rhythm dimensions, and surveys the state-of-theart of interactive music systems. It considers eighteen interactive music systems affording music input and rhythm generation. These systems are analyzed and categorized according to a rhythm taxonomy extending on a prior taxonomy related to interactive music systems. Analyzing the data reveals dimensions of rhythm that need deeper considerations, which, in comparison with the conclusions of the prior taxonomy, results in design considerations and evaluation methods for the design of rhythmic generation and rhythmic interaction of future interactive music systems. / Det existerar ett flertal taxonomier och typologier relaterade till interaktiva musiksystem, med fokus på improvisation, musikgenerering och mjukvarubaserade intelligenta musikagenter. Dessa studier är omfattande men allmänna i sin analys av musikinteraktionen och musiken som genereras av systemen och saknar en djupgående beaktande av rytm. Baserat på relevant litteratur om rytmuppfattning, principer för musikframförande och interaktiva musiksystem, konceptualiserar denna master uppsats rytm enligt sju rytmdimensioner och undersöker forskningsfältet för interaktiva musiksystem. Arton interaktiva musiksystem som möjliggör musikinmatning och rytmgenerering undersöks. Dessa system analyseras och kategoriseras enligt en rytm-taxonomi som bygger på en tidigare taxonomi relaterad till interaktiva musiksystem. Genom dataanalys framkommer det vilka rytmdimensioner som är i behov av ytterligare efterforskning, vilket i jämförelse med slutsatserna av den tidigare taxonomin resulterar i designöverväganden och utvärderingsmetoder för framtida utveckling av interaktiva musiksystem med fokus på rytm.

Musical timbre transfer is the task of re-rendering the musical content of a given source using the rendering style of a target sound. The source keeps its musical content, e.g., pitch, microtiming, orchestration, and syncopation. I specifically focus on the task of transferring the style of percussive patterns extracted from polyphonic audio using a MelGAN-VC model [57] by training acoustic properties for each genre. Evaluating audio style transfer is challenging and typically requires user studies. An analytical methodology based on supervised and unsupervised learning including visualization for evaluating musical timbre transfer is proposed. The proposed methodology is used to evaluate the MelGAN-VC model for musical timbre transfer of drum tracks. The method uses audio features to analyze results of the timbre transfer based on classification probability from Random Forest classifier. And K-means algorithm can classify unlabeled instances using audio features and style-transformed results are visualized by t-SNE dimensionality reduction technique, which is helpful for interpreting relations between musical genres and comparing results from the Random Forest classifier. / Graduate