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Chasing a Feeling: Experience in Computer Supported Jamming

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Book cover Music and Human-Computer Interaction

Part of the book series: Springer Series on Cultural Computing ((SSCC))

Abstract

Improvisational group music-making, informally known as ‘jamming’, has its own cultures and conventions of musical interaction. One characteristic of this interaction is the primacy of the experience over the musical artefact—in some sense the sound created is not as important as the feeling of being ‘in the groove’. As computing devices infiltrate creative, open-ended task domains, what can Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) learn from jamming? How do we design systems where the goal is not an artefact but a felt experience? This chapter examines these issues in light of an experiment involving ‘Viscotheque’, a novel group music-making environment based on the iPhone.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research School of Computer Science, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

    Ben Swift

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  1. Ben Swift
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Correspondence to Ben Swift .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre For Research In Computing, The Open University, Walton Hall JLB2, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom

    Simon Holland

  2. Centre For Research In Computing, The Open University, Walton Hall JLB2, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom

    Katie Wilkie

  3. Centre For Research In Computing, The Open University, Walton Hall JLB2, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom

    Paul Mulholland

  4. Sir John Cass Fac. of Art, Arch & Design, London Metropolitan University, Commercial Road 41, London, E1 1LA, United Kingdom

    Allan Seago

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Swift, B. (2013). Chasing a Feeling: Experience in Computer Supported Jamming. In: Holland, S., Wilkie, K., Mulholland, P., Seago, A. (eds) Music and Human-Computer Interaction. Springer Series on Cultural Computing. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-2990-5_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-2990-5_5

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-2989-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-2990-5

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