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Musical Instruments for Novices: Comparing NIME, HCI and Crowdfunding Approaches

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New Directions in Music and Human-Computer Interaction

Part of the book series: Springer Series on Cultural Computing ((SSCC))

Abstract

Designing musical instruments to make performance accessible to novice musicians is a goal which long predates digital technology. However, just in the space of the past 6 years, dozens of instrument designs have been introduced in various academic venues and in commercial crowdfunding campaigns. In this paper, we draw comparisons in design, evaluation and marketing across four domains: crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter and Indiegogo; the New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) conference; conferences in human-computer interaction (HCI); and researchers creating accessible instruments for children and adults with disabilities. We observe striking differences in approach between commercial and academic projects, with less pronounced differences between each of the academic communities. The paper concludes with general reflections on the identity and purpose of instruments for novice musicians, with suggestions for future exploration.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/352204/number-of-people-play-musical-instrument-usa/.

  2. 2.

    https://gb.abrsm.org/en/making-music/4-the-statistics/.

  3. 3.

    http://kickstarter.com and http://indiegogo.com.

  4. 4.

    Approximate exchange rate as of January 2018: $1 \(=\) €0.8 \(=\) £0.7. For simplicity, and because exchange rates have varied significantly over the 2012–17 period, a fixed threshold of 50k was chosen in each currency.

  5. 5.

    These classifications inherently involve subjective decisions on which different analysts may disagree; this analysis is intended to provide an overall sense of the marketing of musical instruments, rather than precise numerical insights.

  6. 6.

    This survey question allowed multiple responses, so this does not imply that 41% of these instruments were solely or even primarily for non-musicians. For example, 58 of 70 (82%) of authors in the survey also indicated that they built the instrument “for myself,” and 20 of 70 (29%) “for musicians generally.”

  7. 7.

    Other conferences where new musical instruments are featured include the International Computer Music Conference, Sound and Music Computing, Computer Music Multidisciplinary Research, and the journals Computer Music Journal and the Journal of New Music Research. For this study, we restricted our search specifically to NIME as it is the largest such venue and one whose aesthetic and technical priorities we wished to study in contrast to HCI venues.

  8. 8.

    The regional conferences OzCHI and NordiCHI were also surveyed, though no similar works were identified there.

  9. 9.

    http://www.unk.edu/academics/music/unk-one-handed-winds-program.php.

  10. 10.

    http://cdm.link/2017/09/take-a-look-at-the-kellycaster-a-unique-and-accessible-instrument-built-by-dmlabs/.

  11. 11.

    https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/skoogmusic-skoog.

  12. 12.

    http://www.ohmi.org.uk/.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Digital Music, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

    Andrew McPherson

  2. Centre for Digital Music, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

    Fabio Morreale

  3. Centre for Digital Music, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

    Jacob Harrison

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  1. Andrew McPherson
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Correspondence to Andrew McPherson .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Music Computing Lab, Centre for Research in Computing, Walton Hall, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

    Simon Holland

  2. Reid School of Music, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Tom Mudd

  3. Music Computing Lab, Centre for Research in Computing, Walton Hall, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

    Katie Wilkie-McKenna

  4. Centre for Digital Music, School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

    Andrew McPherson

  5. Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Marcelo M. Wanderley

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McPherson, A., Morreale, F., Harrison, J. (2019). Musical Instruments for Novices: Comparing NIME, HCI and Crowdfunding Approaches. In: Holland, S., Mudd, T., Wilkie-McKenna, K., McPherson, A., Wanderley, M. (eds) New Directions in Music and Human-Computer Interaction. Springer Series on Cultural Computing. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92069-6_12

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