Responsive Devices and Systems for Expert Music Interaction

计算机技术（CT）对我们的日常生活产生了巨大的影响，包括我们彼此沟通、购物和驾驶汽车的方式。同样，CT在音乐创作、制作和表演方面也有着巨大的影响。事实上，新的音乐形式和背景已经出现，大部分或完全基于CT，改变了我们思考、产生声音和与声音互动的方式。考虑到高水平的音乐表演对认知和身体的极端要求，为音乐家提供先进的、反应灵敏的、可靠的工具来表达自己是至关重要的。了解他们如何与这些技术互动以及他们如何发展性能专业知识也很重要，即专家如何成为专家。为了解决这些问题，我们将在两个方向上开展研究计划：1)开发音乐交互工具，特别是功能原型，通过创建具有嵌入式声音合成和先进振动触觉反馈的响应设备，允许先进的音乐交互；2)基于功能原型的绩效专家发展分析。我们将开发几个功能原型，为声音和音乐交互所需的响应性和可靠性设计。我们将广泛使用最近在麦吉尔大学成立的加拿大创新基金会（CFI）资助的绩效研究实验室（PRL）提供的快速原型工具来创建各种功能原型，跟踪表演者的动作和行动，并通过定性分析（问卷调查和同行评估）将它们与专业知识的发展联系起来。然后将功能原型提供给音乐家，他们将能够在PRL的控制环境中开发交互/表演技术，从几周到几个月（纵向研究），然后使用独特的cfi资助的多媒体室，允许观众参与。使用定性和定量方法，我们将跟踪专业知识的发展，并探索复杂的音乐互动技能是如何随着时间的推移而发展的。利用从这项研究中获得的知识，我们将创造新的技术，以满足高技能表演者的需求，在音乐环境中使用可靠和响应的CT，使他们能够以富有表现力的方式表演，独立于他们创作的音乐形式。

Computing technology (CT) has a tremendous impact on our everyday life, including the way we communicate with each other, make purchases and drive cars. Similarly, CT has an immense impact in music composition, production and performance. Indeed, new musical forms and contexts have appeared that are mostly, or totally, based on CT, transforming the way we think about, generate and interact with sounds. Given the extreme cognitive and physical requirements involved in high-level musical performance, it is essential to provide musicians with advanced, responsive and reliable tools with which they can express themselves. It is also essential to understand how they interact with such technologies and how they develop performance expertise, i.e. how experts become experts. To tackle these issues, we will carry out a research program in two directions: 1)The development of tools for music interaction, specifically functional prototypes, by creating responsive devices with embedded sound synthesis and advanced vibrotactile feedback allowing for advanced musical interactions; 2)The analysis of the development of performance expertise with functional prototypes. We will develop several functioning prototypes designed for responsiveness and reliability required for sound and musical interactions. We will extensively use fast prototyping tools available at the recently established Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI)-funded Performance Research Laboratory (PRL) at McGill University to create a variety of functional prototypes, track performer movements and actions over time and correlate them with expertise development through qualitative analysis (questionnaires and peer evaluations).Functional prototypes will then be given to musicians who will be able to develop interaction/performance techniques over time in PRL's controlled environment, from a several weeks to a few months (longitudinal studies), then using the unique CFI-funded Multimedia Room, allowing for audience participation. Using qualitative and quantitative methodologies, we will track the development of expertise and probe how complex music interaction skills are developed over time. Using the knowledge obtained from this research, we will create novel technologies that fulfill the needs of highly-skilled performers using reliable and responsive CT in musical contexts, allowing them to perform in expressive ways, independently of the form of music they create.