CRC PhD Student Conference 2010 Presentation

Issues and techniques for collaborative music making on multi-touch surfaces Anna Xambó Visiting Research Student Centre for Research in Computing Supervisor: Robin Laney CRC PhD Student Conference 2010 The Open University

Team • Dr Robin Laney (Open University) • Chris Dobbyn (Open University) • Anna Xambó (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) • Mattia Schirosa (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) • Prof Dorothy Miell (University of Edinburgh) • Prof Karen Littleton (Open University) • Sheep Dalton (Open University)

Project • In collaboration with the MK Art Gallery (2009). • Simple multi-touch music prototype. • Pre-composed materials. Sample loop 1 Active sample loop Headphones 4 Speakers 2 3 1 Bass line 2 Drum line 3 Keyboard line 4 Percussion line Interface diagram. Four users playing with the prototype.

Research question • What aspects maximize collaboration for a particular user group? • How can we evaluate effectively music creation systems that support collaboration on tabletop surfaces? • How can we design systematically music creation systems that support collaboration on tabletop surfaces?

Motivation • Improved collaboration can help in many contexts of music making (composition, performance, improvisation or musical education). • Interaction concepts applicable to other creative domains (gaming, brainstorming). • Evaluation of NIME using HCI methods is considered a novel and promising field of research.

Context • Musical multi-touch surfaces • Creative engagement • Design considerations • Multi-user instruments • Multi-touch interaction

Musical multi-touch surfaces • Audiopad [1], 2002, selection and edition of loops. • Reactable [2, 3], 2004, modular synthesizer. • Composition on the Table [4], 1998, audio-visual creation. • Stereotronic Multi-Synth Orchestra [5], 2009, concentric seq.

Creative engagement • Understanding creativity • Psychological perspective of “flow” or full immersion in an activity (Csikszentmihalyi [6]); the experience of fun and pleasure (Blythe and Hassenzahl [7]). • Creativity in group • In the collective music composition attunement to others’ contributions (Bryan-Kinss et al. [8]); “flow” extended to group productivity (Sawyer [9]).

Design considerations • Multi-user instruments ([10], [11], [12]) • Shared vs. local control; complexity vs. simplicity. • Multi-touch interaction [13]) • Discrete vs. continuous actions; display size; sense of touch; multiplicity.

Method • Iterative process: Design -> Evaluation -> Design • User study • Participants: 12 people, 3 groups of 4 users (music skills: G1=16/20, G2=8/20, G3=9/20). • Video recordings: 3 musical tasks + informal discussion. • Questionnaire. • Data analysis • Open coding (derived from GT [14]). • Structured coding (derived from qualitative CA [15]).

Findings from OC • Collaboration • Awareness of others; visual feedback; decision making. • Musical aesthetics • Emotiveness; playfulness. • Learning process • Easiness vs. difficulty. • System design • Responsiveness; individual expressivity.

Findings from structured coding • Codes used • Codes from [16]: tangible manipulation (consistent physical-digital), spatial interaction, embodied facilitation (affordances), expressive representation (legibility). • Codes from [8]: mutual awareness, shared representations (collective legibility), mutual modifiability (level of democracy), annotation (opinions). • Results • Consistent evidence: some content already discussed in the OC. • New: multiple access points; shareable controls; conversations.

Findings from questionnaire • Q1. I felt we operated as a team. !" $'** !# %'") • Q2. I felt part of a collaborative process. !$ #'#& • Q3. It was difficult to play. !% %'&* !& $'() • Q4. I enjoyed the music making task. " +,-./011 # $ % 2/011 & Averages for the 5 statements. • Q5. I concentrated intensely on the music making.

Conclusions • In general • A simple (and constrained) prototype can be highly engaging (mainly for novices). • This evaluation method provide us evidence of creative engagement. • This approach can help us improve the prototype design (participatory design). • In particular • Roles: no dominant figure emerged, one or another took the lead. • Conversation: The prototype strongly facilitated conversation (group productivity).

Future work • Better responsiveness • Responsiveness-emotiveness; audiovisual feedback. • Adding shared controls • Support of both shared and individual controls. • Adding features • Balance complexity-simplicity (experts and novices).

References [1] J. Patten, B. Recht, and H. Ishii, “Audiopad: a tagbased interface for musical performance,” in NIME ’02: Proceedings of the 2002 conference on New interfaces for musical expression, (Singapore), pp. 1–6, National University of Singapore, 2002. [2] S. Jordà, M. Kaltenbrunner, G. Geiger, and R. Bencina, “The reacTable*,” in Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC 2005), (Barcelona, Spain), 2005. [3] S. Jordà, G. Geiger, M. Alonso, and M. Kaltenbrunner, “The reacTable: Exploring the synergy between live music performance and tabletop tangible interfaces,” in TEI ’07: Proceedings of the 1st international conference on Tangible and embedded interaction, (New York, NY, USA), pp. 139–146, ACM, 2007. [4] T. Iwai, “Composition on the table,” in International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, SIGGRAPH: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, ACM, 1999. [5] http://www.fashionbuddha.com/, 15/3/2010. [6] M. Csikszentmihalyi, Beyond Boredom and Anxiety: Experiencing Flow in Work and Play. Jossey-Bass, 1975. [7] M. Blythe and M. Hassenzahl, The semantics of fun: differentiating enjoyable experiences, pp. 91–100. Norwell, MA, USA: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004. [8] N. Bryan-Kinns and F. Hamilton, “Identifying mutual engagement” Behaviour and Information Technology, 2009. [9] K. Sawyer, Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration. Basic Books, 2007. [10] [2] S. Jordà, “Multi-user instruments: models, examples and promises,” in NIME ’05: Proceedings of the 2005 conference on New interfaces for musical expression, (Singapore, Singapore), pp. 23–26, National University. [11] R. Fiebrink, D. Morris, and M. R. Morris, “Dynamic mapping of physical controls for tabletop groupware,” in CHI ’09: Proceedings of the 27th international conference on Human factors in computing systems, (New York, NY, USA), pp. 471–480, ACM, 2009. [12] T. Blaine and S. Fels, “Contexts of collaborative musical experiences,” in NIME ’03: Proceedings of the 2003 conference on New interfaces for musical expression, (Singapore, Singapore), pp. 129–134, National University of Singapore, 2003. [13] B. Buxton, Multi-Touch Systems that I Have Known and Loved. Microsoft Research, 2007. [14] J. Lazar, J. Feng, and H. Hochheiser, Research Methods in Human-Computer Interaction. Wiley, 2010. [15] D. L. Altheide, “Ethnographic content analysis,” Qualitative Sociology, vol. 10, pp. 65–77, 1987. [16] E. Hornecker and J. Buur, “Getting a grip on tangible interaction: A framework on physical space and social interaction,” in CHI ’06: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems, (New York, NY, USA), pp. 437–446, ACM Press, 2006.

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