Musical Gesture

Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology (ICST)

Jan Schacher

Das Thema diese Projektes ist die vertiefte Auseinandersetzung mit der musikalischen Geste. Dies geschieht durch Analyse und Qualifizierung von musikalisch ausdrucksvollen Gesten in methodischen Versuchen. Wahrnehmungsprozesse und Qualitäten musikalischer Gesten in Zusammenhang mit elektronischer Musik  werden untersucht. Die Erkenntnisse werden in konkreten Anwendungen in musikalischer und künstlerischer Praxis umgesetzt und bei der Neu- und Weiterentwicklung von Mensch-Maschinen Schnittstellen zur erweiterten Interaktion in elektronischer Musik.

"The concept of musical gestures encompasses a large territory stretching from details of sound- production to more global emotive and aesthetic images of music, [...] In all cases, it is believed that musical gestures manifest the primordial role of human movement in music. For this reason, scholars speak of embodied music cognition [..] i.e. that listening [..] also is a process of incessant mental re- enactment of musical gestures." wikipedia.org musical gesture

Gestural interaction is increasingly becoming a part of consumer products such as gaming interfaces or mobile devices. Sound is a medium that suits temporal and continuous multisensory interaction which often enhances immersion and naturalness of interaction. Sonic interaction design builds upon the knowledge from research in musical gesture, yet there are several differences that should be considered. Whereas a musical gesture focuses on expressive qualities and the intended artistic experience of a musician, the sonic gesture is related to everyday experience with products and often their functional or aesthetic qualities. In this sense musical gesture is more complex than sonic gesture that is designed for specific users or most often need be accessible to all. Questions specific to the field of sonic interaction design relate to issues of sonic metaphors, gesture in interactive narratives, performative and aesthetic role of sound in products, evaluation of sonic gesture, gesture in products and applications, musical and sonic gesture in everyday lives etc. Questions in the field musical gesture research are about fundamental issues of perception, proprioception, mental representation, affordances of interface devices and methods and aesthetic directions in artistic processes.