Beyond the Keyboard and Sequencer: Strategies for Interaction between Parametrically-­Dense Motion Sensing Devices and Robotic Musical Instruments

Abstract

The proliferation and ubiquity of sensor, actuator and microcontroller technology in recent years have pro-pelled contemporary robotic musical instruments (RMIs) and digital music controllers to become more para-metrically dense than their predecessors. Prior projects have focused on creating interaction strategies for relatively low degrees--of--freedom input and output schemes. Drawing upon prior research, this paper ex-plores schemes for interaction between parametrically--dense motion--based control devices and contempo-rary parametrically--dense robotic musical instruments. The details of two interaction schemes are presented: those consisting of one--to--one control (allowing the actions of a performer to directly affect an instrument) and those consisting of a recognition system wherein user--created gestures result in output patterns from the robotic musical instrument. The implementation of the interaction schemes is described, and a performance utilizing these schemes is presented.