An Enactive Approach to the Design of New Tangible Musical Instruments

In this paper, we propose a theoretical framework for the design of tangible interfaces for musical expression. The main insight for the proposed approach is the importance and utility of familiar sensorimotor experiences for the creation of engaging and playable new musical instruments. In particular, we suggest exploiting the commonalities between different natural interactions by varying the auditory response or tactile details of the instrument within certain limits. Using this principle, devices for classes of sounds such as coarse grain collision interactions or friction interactions can be designed. The designs we propose retain the familiar tactile aspect of the interaction so that the performer can take advantage of tacit knowledge gained through experiences with such phenomena in the real world.

A Novel Multimodal Interface for Improving Visually Impaired People's Web Accessibility

This paper introduces a novel interface designed to help blind and visually impaired people to explore and navigate on the Web. In contrast to traditionally used assistive tools, such as screen readers and magnifiers, the new interface employs a combination of both audio and haptic features to provide spatial and navigational information to users. The haptic features are presented via a low-cost force feedback mouse allowing blind people to interact with the Web, in a similar fashion to their sighted counterparts. The audio provides navigational and textual information through the use of non-speech sounds and synthesised speech. Interacting with the multimodal interface offers a novel experience to target users, especially to those with total blindness. A series of experiments have been conducted to ascertain the usability of the interface and compare its performance to that of a traditional screen reader. Results have shown the advantages that the new multimodal interface offers blind and visually impaired people. This includes the enhanced perception of the spatial layout of Web pages, and navigation towards elements on a page. Certain issues regarding the design of the haptic and audio features raised in the evaluation are discussed and presented in terms of recommendations for future work.

The Voice as Transcursive Inscriber: The Relation of Body and Instrument Understood through the Workings of a Machine

This article examines the relationship of the body with a musical instrument; specifically it looks at the vital threshold conditions that occur during the interplay of voice and instrument. By examining the work ‘IKAS’ (1982) for solo saxophone by German composer Hans-Joachim Hespos, the unusual timbral relationships created between vocal and instrumental sounds are exposed. I argue that this particular work highlights the performer/instrument relation as one marked by Gilles Deleuze’s notion of the workings of a machine and a machine’s relation to a ‘flow’, in particular a machine’s function with view to the break in the flow. By turning towards Deleuze’s concept of the machine, this article offers a slightly different vocabulary for music analysis, one that more easily encompasses certain works of the twentieth century, specifically those that are more timbre- than pitch-based.

Juxtaposition and Non-Motion: Varese Bridges Modernism and Electroacoustic Music

Edgard Vare` se’s Poe` me e´ lectronique can be viewed as a bridge between early twentieth-century modernism and electroacoustic music. This connection to early modernism is most clearly seen in its use of musical juxtaposition, a favoured technique of early modernist composers, especially those active in Paris. Juxtaposition and non-motion are considered here, particularly in relationship to Smalley’s exposition of spectromorphology (Smalley 1986), which in its preoccupation with motion omits any significant consideration of non-motion. Juxtaposition and non-motion have an important history within twentieth-century music, and as an early classic of electroacoustic music, Poe` me e´ lectronique is a particularly striking example of a composition that is rich in juxtapositions similar to those found in passages of early modernist music. Examining Poe` me e´ lectronique through the lens of juxtaposition and non-motion reveals how the organisation of its juxtaposed sounds encourages the experience of sound structure suspended time.

A survey of sidedness in Northern Irish schoolchildren: The interaction of sex, age, and task

The study examined lateral preference in use of hands, feet, eyes, and ears in a group of nearly 5000 schoolchildren in Northern Ireland. Performance tests were carried out by student teachers during their school-based work in 2002 and data were submitted on-line. Six tasks were used-writing, throwing a ball, kicking a ball, hopping, listening to quiet sounds, and looking through a cardboard tube. There was right bias in every task but the extent of it differed between tasks. Males were generally less right biased than females, and younger children less than older ones; for hearing, the changes with age were markedly different in the two sexes, with females showing a strong increase in right bias but males showing none. These observational results do little to illuminate the reasons for the patterns observed.

The Fraternity of Metaphors: Jean-Luc Godard's Film Socialisme

Since the 'completion' of Histoire(s) du cinema (1988-1998), Jean-Luc Godard's work has become increasingly mosaic-like in its forms and configurations, and markedly elegiac in its ruminations on history, cinema, art, and thought. While his associative aesthetic and citational method –including his choice of ‘actors’, and the fragmentariness of his ‘soundtracks’ – can combine to create a distinctive cinematic event, the films themselves refuse to cohere around a unifying concern, or yield to a thematic schema. Not surprisingly, Film Socialisme does not offer us the illusion of narrative or structural integrity anymore than it contributes to the quotidian rhetoric of political and moral argument. It is, however, a political film in the sense that it alters something more fundamental than opinions and points of view. It transforms a way of seeing and understanding reality and history, fiction and documentary, images, and images of images. If anything, it belongs to that dissident or ‘dissensual’ category of artwork capable of ‘emancipating the spectator’ by disturbing what Jacques Rancière terms ‘the distribution of the sensible’ in that it generates gaps, openings, and spaces, poses questions, invites associations without positing a fixed position, imposing an interpretation, or allowing itself to invest in the illusion of expressive objectivity and the stability of meaning. The myriad citations and fragments that comprise the film are never intended to culminate into anything cohesive, never mind conclusive. In one sense, they have no source and no context beyond their moment in the film itself, and what we make of that moment. This article studies the degree to which Godard allows these images and sounds to combine and collide, associate and dissolve in this film, arguing that Film Socialisme is both an important intervention in the history of contemporary cinema, and necessary point of reference in any serious discussion of the relations between that cinema and political reality.

Taking the Next Step? Achieving another Bill of Rights

The aim of this article is to explore the recent Bill of Rights debate in the UK. This is deliberately located in the UK’s complex ‘national question’ because of the obsessive focus on achieving a proper grounding for human rights. A new form of national human rights protectionism appears to be emerging and merits careful consideration. The article suggests that it is better to acknowledge and accept the existence of a plurality of nationalisms in the UK in these discussions and understand how an essentially ‘British nationalist’ discourse sounds and works in that overall context. The concern is that the Bill of Rights debate is becoming an inadequate surrogate for the more challenging constitutional conversations that are required, and human rights discourse thus invested with expectations of national renewal that it can never meet and does not have the internal resources to resolve. If the process does go forward it may be better to prepare the ground for a deeper and wider constitutional dialogue across these islands than stumble clumsily and divisively into this territory simply via ‘another’ UK Bill of Rights.

Estimation of Clarinet Reed Parameters by Inverse Modelling

Analysis of the acoustical functioning of musical instruments invariably involves the estimation of model parameters. The broad aim of this paper is to develop methods for estimation of clarinet reed parameters that are representative of actual playing conditions. This presents various challenges because of the di?culties of measuring the directly relevant variables without interfering with the control of the instrument. An inverse modelling approach is therefore proposed, in which the equations governing the sound generation mechanism of the clarinet
are employed in an optimisation procedure to determine the reed parameters from the mouthpiece pressure and volume ?ow signals. The underlying physical model captures most of the reed dynamics and is simple enough to be used in an inversion process. The optimisation procedure is ?rst tested by applying it to numerically synthesised signals, and then applied to mouthpiece signals acquired during notes blown by a human player. The proposed inverse modelling approach raises the possibility of revealing information about the way in which the embouchure-related reed parameters are controlled by the player, and also facilitates physics-based re-synthesis of clarinet sounds.

Every Situation has its Rhythm: Acoustic Mimesis and Sonic Exoticism in Tambours Sur La Digue.

This article examines the soundscapes of Ariane Mnouchkine’s Tambours Sur La Digue and explores the concept of acoustic mimesis located in the performance as a dramaturgical strategy to create, aurally, an imagined Far East. In Tambours, mimesis is the performative principle exemplified by the presentation of the mise en scène, and most distinctly Mnouckine’s decision to adapt the Japanese performance tradition of Bunraku through a process of 'reversed' mimicry (in which human bodies simulate the wooden marionettes of the Japanese style). Mimesis pervades the acoustemologies of the performance as it is heard in the extracted sounds, styles, and rhythms of Asian musical modes and movements that consequently become dislocated from context; the sounds become imitated, iconicised and exoticised as sonic signatures as they reify the Orientalist spectacle. The 'oriental' soundscape, reverberating with exotic overtones, becomes the means by which the production creates an imaginary Orient – one in which the Orient Other is silenced, and is resounded only through the musical sensibilities of the Occidental Self.

If Music Be the Food of Love:An Acoustic ‘Fourth World’ in Ong Keng Sen’s Awaking”

Staged as an attempt to ‘bring together Shakespeare’s plays and Tang Xian Zu’s classical Kunqu opera, The Peony Pavilion,’ (Ong, Programme Notes) Awaking stands as Singapore Director Ong Keng Sen’s most recent and prominent attempt at engaging issues of the intercultural through music and sound. While Ong’s previous intercultural projects sought to explore the politics of intercultural performance through the exchange, layering, confrontation and inter-mixing of Asian performance modes as visual aesthetics, Awaking is a performance at the borders of theatrical and musical conventions, as it features the music and musicians as central performative devices of staging the intercultural. Northern Kunqu opera, Chinese classical music and Elizabethan folk tunes from Shakespeare’s plays were re-moved, re-contextualised, and juxtaposed to explore ‘differing yet connected philosophies on love, death, and the afterlife’ (Awaking, Publicity). These humanist and ‘universal’ themes found expression in the ‘universal’ language of music. Through a study of the musicalities and sonic expressions of Awaking, the paper seeks to explore the implications of such cultural-musical juxtapositions. The paper engages, specifically, with the problematics and possibilities of music as a ‘universal language’ as implied by Ong’s concordance of Eastern and Western sounds in the final act. It further considers the politics of an intercultural soundscape and the acoustemologies of such an intercultural approach.

Zeros and Os:Silence, Absence and Erasure in an Intercultural O-thello

The performative function of sound and music has received little attention in performance theory and criticism and certainly much less so in studies of intercultural theatre. Such an absence is noteworthy particularly since interculturalism is an appropriative Western theatrical form that absorbs Eastern sources to re-create the targeted Western mise en scene. Consequently, a careful consideration of the employment of sound and music are imperative for sound and music form the vertebrae of Asian traditional performance practices. In acoustemological and ethnomusicological studies, sound and music demarcate cultural boundaries and locate cultures by an auditory (dis)recognition. In the light of this need for a more considered understanding of the performative function of sound and music in intercultural performance, this paper seeks to examine the soundscapes of an intercultural production of Shakespeare’s Othello – Desdemona. Directed by Singaporean Ong Keng Sen, Desdemona was a re-scripting of Shakespeare’s text and a self-conscious performance an identity politics. Staged with a multi-ethnic, multi-national cast, Desdemona employed various Asian performance traditions such as Sanskrit Kutiyattam, Myanmarese puppetry, and Korean p’ansori to create the intercultural spectacle. The spectacle was not only a visual aesthetic but an aural one as well. By examining the soundscapes of fractured silences and eruptive cultural sounds the paper hopes to establish the ways in which Desdemona performs absences and erasures of ‘Asia’ in a simultaneous act of performing an Asian Shakespeare.

Thou art a strange fellow:Dissonance and Discordance in Intercultural Shakespeares

Any performance of the intercultural necessarily, and always, advances the question of the cultural since it involves the inter-action and interplay of unique and particular cultural performance styles and modes. Intercultural theatre, according to Pavis, is a hybrid theatrical form “drawing upon performance traditions traceable to distinct cultural areas. The hybridization is very often such that the original forms can no longer be distinguished.” The result of this collaboration of forms is, however, often not a ‘hybrid’ where cultural texts work cohesively and in unison to produce a harmonious mise en scene. Instead, intercultural performances are performances at the interstices and at the intersections of cultures. They raise problems of authorship, authority and performance unities and expose a sense of cultural foreignness. Consequently, intercultural performance can be said to be meta-theatre that queries the construction of culture since it places alongside performance traditions that confront.

Music, as performative unit, is a significant line of action by which the intercultural spectacle is constructed. Integral to Western theatre, and certainly more so in traditional Asian performance forms, the deliberate ‘fusion’ and ‘blending’ of musical styles in intercultural performances underscore not a harmony of diverse sounds but the possible dissonance and discordance already performed by the visual and verbal texts. The paper thus seeks to examine, in particular, the musical elements in intercultural performances such as Ong Keng Sen’s Lear (Theatreworks, 1999) and explore the ways in which music could possibly intensify the confrontation of performative texts resulting in a disruption of performance unities. When watching and listening to Lear, the question of the ‘local’ thus arises not merely with identification and alienation from what is seen but also what is familiar and foreign to one’s ears.

Judging pain in newborns:facial and cry determinants

Explored the facial and cry characteristics that adults use when judging an infant's pain. Sixteen women viewed videotaped reactions of 36 newborns subjected to noninvasive thigh rubs and vitamin K injections in the course of routine care and rated discomfort. The group mean interrater reliability was high. Detailed descriptions of the infants' facial reactions and cry sounds permitted specification of the determinants of distress judgments. Several facial variables (a brow bulge, eyes squeezed shut, and deepened nasolabial fold constellation, and taut tongue) accounted for 49% of the variance in ratings of affective discomfort after controlling for ratings of discomfort during a noninvasive event. In a separate analysis not including facial activity, several cry variables (formant frequency, latency to cry) also accounted for variance (38%) in ratings. When the facial and cry variables were considered together, cry variables added little to the prediction of ratings in comparison to facial variables. Cry would seem to command attention, but facial activity, rather than cry, can account for the major variations in adults' judgments of neonatal pain.

Creating a Circus of Words, Music, and Sound: From Roaratorio to Owenvarragh

This article documents the creation of a work by the authors based on a score written by the composer John Cage entitled 'Owenvarragh: A Belfast Circus on The Star Factory.' The article is part of a documentary portfolio in the journal which also includes a volume of the poetry created by Dowling in accordance with the instructions of the Cage score, and a series of documentary videos on the creation of the work and its first performance. Cage's score is based on his work 'Roaratorio: An Irish Circus on Finnegan's Wake' (1979) and it provides a set of detailed instructions for the musical realisation of a literary work. The article documents this first fully realised version of the score since Cage first produced 'Roaratorio' in 1979. The work, which was motivated by the Cage centenary year in 2012, musically realises Carson's book 'The Star Factory' (1998), a novelestic autobiography of Carson's Belfast childhood. The score required the creation of a fixed media piece based on over 300 field recordings of the sounds and places mentioned in the book, a volume of poetry created from the book which is recited to form the rhythmic spine of the work, and the arrangement of a performance including these two components along with live musical performance by the authors in collaboration with three other musicians under their direction, and a video installation created for the work. The piece has been performed three times: in association with the Sonorities 2012 Festival at Queen's University of Belfast (March 2012), at The Belfast Festival at Queen's (October 2012), and in the Rymer Auditoium of the University of York (June 2013).

Additional information:

The work which the article documents was conceived by Monaghan and Dowling, and the project was initiated by Monaghan after a she received a student prize to support its development and first performance. Elements of the project will be included in her PhD dissertation for which Dowling is a supervisor. Monaghan created the fixed media piece based on over 300 field recordings, the largest single aspect of realising Cage's score. Dowling was responsible for initiating the collaboration with Ciaran Carson, and for two other components: the creation of a volume of poetry derived from the literary work which is recited in the performance, and the creation of and supervision of the technical work on a video which accompanies the piece. The co-authors consulted closely during the work on these large components from May 2011 until March 2012 when the first performance took place. The co-authors also shared in numerous other artistic and organisational aspects of the production, including the arrangement and performnance of the music, musical direction to other performers, and marketing.