Telehaptic interfaces for interpersonal communication within a music ensemble

• Published in: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2013-05, Vol.133 (5_Supplement), p.3256-3256
• Main Authors: Braasch, Jonas, Oliveros, Pauline, Van Nort, Doug
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0001-4966; 1520-8524
• DOI: 10.1121/1.4805251

Visual communication is an important aspect of music performance, for example, to pick up temporal cues and find the right entries. Visual cues can also be instrumental to negotiate the solo order in improvized music or enable social exchange, for example, by signaling someone that her solo was well received. The problem with visual communication is that one has to catch someone else’s attention, and visual cues outside someone’s visual field cannot be detected, even more so if the addressee is busy reading a music score or closing his eyes in a Free Music session. Acoustic communication does not encounter these challenges, but of course someone does not want to disturb the music with other acoustic signals. The haptic modality has the advantage that it does not necessarily interfere with the acoustic signal and does not require attention. However, it allows interpersonal communication if both parties are within close proximity. Using telematic interfaces solves the problem of proximity by allowing participants to communicate over any physical distance. In the project presented here, haptic interfaces were explored in connection with an intelligent music system, CAIRA, to examine both the effect of human/machine and inter-human communication. [Work supported by the National Science Foundation, No. 1002851.]