Luciano Vargas Flores

Convergent Trends Toward Ubiquitous Music

Abstract Current musical practices point to convergent research trends that bring together eco-composition, cooperative composition, mobile music and networked music. We present results of three compositional studies devised to test three musical interaction metaphors for ubiquitous computing contexts: the cup metaphor, time tagging and spatial tagging. These metaphors were developed through a conceptual and methodological framework that places compositional activities within the context of software development. We discuss the theoretical underpinnings of our approach and propose ubiquitous music as a frame of reference for this type of research.

CODES: a Web-based environment for cooperative music prototyping

This paper presents CODES – COoperative Music Prototype DESign, a Web-based environment for cooperative music prototyping. Its main goal is to allow any user – especially those with no expertise in music – to draft musical pieces collectively, in a prototyping manner. So, such musical sketches – we call them music prototypes – can be repeatedly tested, listened to, and modified, not only by their original creators but also by the online partners that will cooperate in their refinement, until their final form is reached. CODES enables sharing of knowledge by means of rich interaction and argumentation mechanisms associated to each prototype modification, which are also secure ways of providing awareness to this asynchronous collaborative environment. In this paper, we present the concept of music prototyping and introduce the main aspects related to cooperative prototyping of musical pieces, focusing on issues concerning a musical piece as a collective creation of a virtual community. We will also show some usage examples as a means to describe the overall architecture, behaviour and potentials of the CODES environment.

Interfaces for musical activities and interfaces for musicians are not the same: the case for codes, a web-based environment for cooperative music prototyping

In this paper, some requirements of user interfaces for musical activities are investigated and discussed, particularly focusing on the necessary distinction between interfaces for musical activities and interfaces for musicians. We also discuss the interactive and cooperative aspects of music creation activities in CODES, a Web-based environment for cooperative music prototyping, designed mainly for novices in music. Aspects related to interaction flexibility and usability are presented, as well as features to support manipulation of complex musical information, cooperative activities and group awareness, which allow users to understand the actions and decisions of all group members cooperating and sharing a music prototype.

Educação Musical Auxiliada por Computador: Algumas Considerações e Experiências

O objetivo deste trabalho e tecer consideracoes relativas a educacao musical auxiliada por computador, salientar topicos que consideramos necessarios para este tipo de pratica e algumas caracteristicas de sistemas que os contemplam. Discute, ainda, como explorar a computacao musical como meio de inclusao digital, citando experiencias de pesquisas na area.

Musical interaction patterns: communicating computer music knowledge in a multidisciplinary project

The growing popularity of mobile devices gave birth to a still emergent research field, called Mobile Music, and concerning the development of musical applications for use in these devices. Our particular research investigates interaction design within this field, taking into account relations hips with ubiquitous computing contexts, and applying knowledge from several disciplines, mainly Computer Music and Human-Computer Interaction. In this paper we propose using the concept of patterns in such multidisciplinary design context. Design patterns are, essentially, common solutions for specific design problems, which have been systematically collected and documented. Since they help designers, allowing them to reuse proven solutions within a certain domain, we argue that they can aid multidisciplinary design, facilitating communication and allowing knowledge transfer among team members of diverse fields. We illustrate our point by describing a set of musical interaction patterns that came out of our investigation so far, showing how they encapsulate Computer Music knowledge and how this was helpful in our own design process.

Cooperation in musical prototypes design

This paper presents the main characteristics and discusses the rationale for the cooperative mechanisms implemented in CODES - a Web-based environment designed to support cooperative music prototyping. The CODES environment aims to provide actual cooperation, social knowledge construction, argumentation and negotiation among the different actors of musical prototypes design activities. A brief description of CODES and its original concept of “music prototyping” is initially presented, characterizing this activity as non-technical products design. This is followed by concepts and descriptions of CODES cooperation mechanisms, illustrating how they increase awareness of other users and their intentions in the context of group activities for non-technical design. We present the design and prototypical implementation of CODES as well as some encouraging results from preliminary qualitative tests.

CODES: supporting awareness in a web-based environment for collective music prototyping

CODES is a Web-based environment designed to support cooperative music prototyping. This paper discusses the mechanisms which were implemented in CODES in order to provide group awareness: music prototyping rationale, action logging and modification marks. The main characteristics of CODES are initially presented, followed by descriptions and discussions of the proposed awareness mechanisms.

Methods in Creativity-Centred Design for Ubiquitous Musical Activities

In this chapter we describe a set of creativity-centred design methods including strategies for interaction, signal processing, planning, prototyping and creativity assessment. Social, material and procedural requirements were gathered through a ten-subject planning design study. Based on these results, an interaction metaphor—time tagging—was developed to deal with a musical activity in ubiquitous contexts: localised audio mixing. We implemented a series of prototypes—the first generation of mixDroid—for mixing using Android-based mobile devices. An exploratory field study with mixDroid was conducted inside the studio and in the locations where the sound samples were recorded. Activities happening outside the studio resulted in higher creativity scores on two dimensions—explorability and productivity. We discuss the preliminary implications of these findings for future experiments targeting aspects of exploratory creativity in everyday settings.

Who Are the Web Composers

Web 2.0 with RIA (Rich Internet Applications) becomes a wide field for social networks and new distributed collective practices. In this paper we explain why and how CODES, a novice-oriented Web-based environment for cooperative music prototyping, provides support to a new practice in which novices in music may produce (not only consume) music cooperatively. CODES stimulates the emergence of new user roles --- these users not only create and edit cooperatively their own music but also may participate in discussions and exchange ideas about their contributions. The implications of this Web-based group music making and shared authorship --- some of them identified through actual experiments --- are also presented.

Redesigning Interaction in CODES

Our research group is currently working on the user interface and interaction redesign of CODES, a system for collective music creation on the Web. Cooperative work over a piece of music in CODES follows a cyclic, prototyping approach, which brings some challenges for interaction design. This poster summarizes our redesign concept guidelines, the problems we identified through evaluation of the previous version, and our proposed solutions. The main issues addressed were task conformance, site structure and navigation, aesthetics, and simplicity.