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A Case Study in Collaborative Learning via Participatory Music Interactive Systems: Interactive Tango Milonga

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New Directions in Music and Human-Computer Interaction

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

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Abstract

This chapter investigates design strategies for developing digital musical instruments (DMIs) for participatory music. In particular, we present strategies to enhance collaborative musical skills such as rhythmic entrainment and listening/responding to other participants: building skills of this kind has the capacity to motivate long-term usage and adoption of the DMI by a broad range of communities. The design strategies described here address the problems of developing DMIs for long-term use, both in collaborative, mixed skill level contexts, and in established musical and dance traditions. Interactive Tango Milonga—presented here as a case study—is an interactive dance system allowing social tango dancers to drive musical outcomes in real-time via their dance movement. Motion sensors are attached to dancers, and the signals from these sensors are sent to a computer, where an algorithm transforms them into tango music. The impact of the interactive tango system on the musical listening and response of tango dancer participants is analyzed and discussed.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Turino (2008) uses the term “participatory music” to describe musical activities occurring on an on-going basis in which all attendees are expected to contribute movement or sound that is integral to the overall result, with the aim of social connection generally prioritized over musical outcome quality. This chapter employs his definition of “participatory music”.

  2. 2.

    That is, musical interfaces intended for long-term use and adoption by a community of users rather than an idiosyncratic instrument intended for only a few performances, a single creator/performer, or one musical work.

  3. 3.

    Since the musical interaction design considerations appropriate for stylized dance involve taking into account both movement constraints, such as embrace in Western partnered dancing, and cognitive constraints, such as the limited availability of dancer attention and working memory while immersed in improvising with each other.

  4. 4.

    In traditional Western art music.

  5. 5.

    For a demonstration of the system, visit http://interactivetango.com.

  6. 6.

    Note that Argentine tango is distinct from ballroom tango, which, while influenced by early Argentine tango styles, originated elsewhere. Ballroom tango employs different movement techniques, and is more closely related to other European ballroom dances such as the foxtrot than Argentine tango.

  7. 7.

    Both this reliance on time based structures from the music, and the intuitive nature of dancers’ response are consistent with both anecdotal evidence from the first author’s experience, and results from our research. See Sect. 18.4.5.2 for a summarization of the interview responses regarding existing dancer musicality strategies.

  8. 8.

    In this context, ‘mistakes’ refers to musical and movement outcomes judged by dancers to be undesirable or unintentional in the context of tango social dance.

  9. 9.

    Unless born completely hearing-impaired.

  10. 10.

    Anecdotally and corroborated via responses to open-ended interview questions described in Sect. 18.4.5.

  11. 11.

    Sforzando is a musical directive meaning play the passage suddenly, with marked emphasis.

  12. 12.

    In using the terms “third-order” and “fourth-order” we are referring to taking the nth derivative of a given movement signal, generally with the original signal measuring position.

  13. 13.

    http://shimmersensing.com.

  14. 14.

    https://www.ableton.com/en/live/max-for-live/.

  15. 15.

    http://opensoundcontrol.org.

  16. 16.

    See also Chap. 16 of this book “Machine Learning, Music and Creativity: An Interview with Rebecca Fiebrink” (Holland and Fiebrink 2019).

  17. 17.

    The system also allows two-couple (i.e. four dancer) use, but this version has not yet been assessed.

  18. 18.

    That is, sounded onsets every quarter or half note.

  19. 19.

    Although the interactive tango system currently allows on-the-fly adjustment of this parameter, quantization was fixed to the 16th note for the user studies.

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Acknowledgements

Some passages and figures in this chapter have previously appeared in the first author’s dissertation (Brown 2017).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center of Creative Computation, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, USA

    Courtney Brown

  2. School of Arts, Media, and Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Garth Paine

Authors
  1. Courtney Brown
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  2. Garth Paine
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Courtney Brown .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Music Computing Lab, Centre for Research in Computing, Walton Hall, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

    Simon Holland

  2. Reid School of Music, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Tom Mudd

  3. Music Computing Lab, Centre for Research in Computing, Walton Hall, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

    Katie Wilkie-McKenna

  4. Centre for Digital Music, School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

    Andrew McPherson

  5. Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Marcelo M. Wanderley

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Brown, C., Paine, G. (2019). A Case Study in Collaborative Learning via Participatory Music Interactive Systems: Interactive Tango Milonga. In: Holland, S., Mudd, T., Wilkie-McKenna, K., McPherson, A., Wanderley, M. (eds) New Directions in Music and Human-Computer Interaction. Springer Series on Cultural Computing. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92069-6_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92069-6_18

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