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Thesis Info
- LABS ID
- 00469
- Thesis Title
- Supporting Music Composition With Interactive Paper
- Author
- Jérémie Garcia
- E-mail
- jeremie.garcia AT yahoo.fr
- 2nd Author
- 3rd Author
- Degree
- Ph.D.
- Year
- 2014
- Number of Pages
- 188
- University
- Université Paris-Sud
- Thesis Supervisor
- Wendy Mackay
- Supervisor e-mail
- mackay AT lri.fr
- Other Supervisor(s)
- Carlos Agon
- Language(s) of Thesis
- English
- Department / Discipline
- Computer Science
- Copyright Ownership
- Jérémie Garcia
- Languages Familiar to Author
- English, French
- URL where full thesis can be found
- tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01056992/
- Keywords
- Interactive Paper, Computer Aided Composition, Creativity Support, Music Representations, Participatory Design
- Abstract: 200-500 words
- This thesis focuses on the design of interactive paper interfaces for supporting musical creation.
Music composition has been deeply influenced by the computational power brought by computers but despite the use of software to create new sounds or work with symbolic notation, composers
still use paper in their creative process. Interactive paper creates new opportunities for combining expression on paper and computation. However, designing for highly individual creative practitioners who use personal musical representations is challenging.
In this thesis, I argue that composers need personal and adaptable structures on paper in which they can express and explore musical ideas. I first present three field studies (Chapter 3) with contemporary
composers that examined the use of paper and the computer during the composition process and how linking the two media supports exploration of musical ideas. I then describe a participatory design
study that investigates the use of formal musical representations (Chapter 4) for creating new paper interfaces that extend computer-aided composition tools. I introduce Paper Substrates (Chapter 5), interactive paper components that provide modular structures for interacting with personal representations of computer-based musical data. I detail tools that we created to develop paper applications with the Paper Substrates approach. Several examples illustrate the creation of
personal structures and musical content that can still be interpreted by computer-aided composition software.
I then describe a structured observation study with 12 composers who used Polyphony to compose a short electroacoustic piece (Chapter 6). Polyphony is a unified user interface that integrates interactive
paper and electronic user interfaces for composing music. The study allowed us to systematically observe and compare their compositional processes. Finally, I report on a research and creation project
with the composer Philippe Leroux during the composition of his piece "Quid Sit Musicus" (Chapter 7). Several work sessions with the composer and a musical assistant lead to the design of new paper-based
interfaces for generating composition material, synthesizing sounds and controlling the spatialization from handwritten gestures from calligraphic gestures over an old manuscript.