Abstract:

This study investigates how non-musicians engaged in a solo-accompaniment music improvisation relationship. Seven user teams interacted with two electronic music instruments integrated in two pen tablets. One instrument was a melody instrument and the other a chord instrument. The study was done in order to understand how future shared electronic music instruments can be designed to encourage non-musicians to engage in social action through music improvisation. A combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis was used to find characteristics in co-expression found in a solo-accompaniment relationship. Results of interaction data and video analysis show that 1) teams related to each other through their experience with verbal conversation, 2) users searched for harmonic connections and 3) were able to establish rhythmical grounding. The paper concludes with some design guidelines for future solo-accompaniment shared improvisation interfaces: How realtime analysis of co-expression can be mapped to additional sound feedback that supports, strengthens and evolves co-expression in improvisation.