Ubiquitous Music Ecologies

Victor Lazzarini, Damián Keller, Nuno Otero, Luca Turchet, Victor Lazzarini, Damián Keller, Nuno Otero, Luca Turchet

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780367242657
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000258622
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Digital Media
• Index: Computer Science

Ubiquitous music is an interdisciplinary area of research that lies at the intersection of music and computer science. Initially evolving from the related concept of ubiquitous computing, today ubiquitous music offers a paradigm for understanding how the everyday presence of computers has led to highly diverse music practices. As we move from desktop computers to mobile and internet-based multi-platform systems, new ways to participate in creative musical activities have radically changed the cultural and social landscape of music composition and performance. This volume explores how these new systems interact and how they may transform our musical experiences.

Emerging out of the work of the Ubiquitous Music Group, an international research network established in 2007, this volume provides a snapshot of the ecologically grounded perspectives on ubiquitous music that share the concept of ecosystem as a central theme. Covering theory, software and hardware design, and applications in educational and artistic settings, each chapter features in-depth descriptions of exploratory and cutting-edge creative practices that expand our understanding of music making by means of digital and analogue technologies.

1 The ecologies of ubiquitous music

Victor Lazzarini, Damián Keller, Nuno Otero, and Luca Turchet

Ubiquitous music (ubimus) is an interdisciplinary area of research that lies at the intersection of music, computer science, education, creativity studies, and engineering. This paradigm has evolved initially from the concept of ubiquitous computing (ubicomp), attributed to Weiser (1991), which embodies the idea of all-pervasive and invisible computing present in our everyday lives. Extending these ideas, we can think of a parallel concept, propelled by current technologies, specifically directed at music making (in all of its different manifestations, including its intersections with other practices and forms of knowledge). The emergence of ubimus is disruptive in the sense that it has enabled a variety of new ways in which a person can participate in creative musical activities. Traditionally, music composition and performance have been the domain of the specialist (formally or informally trained), typically through the use of instruments from well-defined organological traditions. The conditions for music making and sharing have been expanded in the course of the 20th century by a number of technological developments, including the appearances of the recording studio and broadcasting. It can be argued that such changes, although significant in some ways, have not intrinsically shifted the centuries-old modes of music making centred around the figures of the active musician and the passive audience.

In contrast, the ubimus paradigm that emerges at the onset of the 21st century shatters this hierarchical relationship by reducing the dependency on specialist training. Also, the organic integration of diverse media art practices fosters a change of attitude towards the artistic settings, providing alternative vehicles for the exercise of creativity, first in professional and formal venues and more recently in everyday contexts. Furthermore, the commercial monopoly of music production and transmission is challenged by the internet as a means of resource distribution and sharing. These changes are not limited to the application of technology or to the sonic results. They affect the whole chain of social and material relationships that permeate the musical endeavours. Therefore, these emerging cultural practices demand flexible frameworks that support rapid technical reconfigurations, while enforcing a cautious and responsible attitude towards the potential environmental and social consequences of these changes.

1.1 Revisiting the ubimus manifesto

As a field of study shared by a number of practitioners around the world, ubimus has recently reached its first decade of existence and has included several overlapping areas of interest (Figure 1.1). While trying to define the core attributes of its research programme, it is worth taking a step back to look at key stages of its development. A first marker was laid by the prologue to Ubiquitous Music, entitled A Manifesto Keller et al. (2014a). An initial research goal was to evaluate how, in parallel to the field of ubicomp, portable devices, the internet, and new modes of interaction were shaping music making. The adopted approach embraced all forms of creative practice. Consequently, it traced a distinct route from the fields of research based on previously established musical repertoires, such as electroacoustic composition and musicology (see also Section 1.2.1).

Figure 1.1 Some areas of ubimus research, as represented in its initial proposals.

The manifesto made a very simple demarcation of ubimus:

In practice, Ubiquitous Music is music (or musical activities) supported by ubiquitous computing (or ubicomp) concepts and technology.

(Keller et al., 2014a, xiii)

In some sense, this has not changed. However, it is hard to encounter examples of what is not ubicomp in current musical practices, as we are surrounded by and frequently dependent on technology.¹ Therefore, from a research perspective it becomes artificial to distinguish the music or the musical activities involving some form of computation from the musical practices that are not based on information technology but that still rely on its tools. This type of reasoning may induce us to think that ubimus has been dissolved into the musical practices that target music made with electronic devices (including computational musicology, electroacoustic music theory, cultural studies in the digital arts, locative media, etc.). We take the view that it is not the case, and that as an interdisciplinary field of study, ubimus has a focus (or a route as noted above) that is distinct from other approaches to information-technology based research.

1.1.1 Other approaches

We should note, at the outset, that the term ubiquitous music might comprehend, in its totality, views and research not contemplated by ubimus practice (as represented by this book and all its associated literature). One of the common uses of the term is related to the ubiquitousness of music, that is, how music and music consumption are permanently present in daily life. This research direction is, quite naturally, dominated by studies in popular music and culture. An interesting take on this issue comes from the field of marketing theory, where many aspects of how music is shared and consumed have been explored from the angle of a ubiquitous (presence of) music (Oakes et al., 2014). Another perspective, stemming from ethnomusicology and sound studies, investigates how the ubiquity of musical products affects listening and sharing (Quiñones et al., 2013). Although this proposal is directed to the study of popular music, a number of intersections can be established between the current research in ubimus and the ethnomusicological approach, especially when considering the impact of the choice of resources on music education (Lima et al., 2012).

Beyond identifying other lines of research that share terminology with ubimus, it may be necessary to delineate what ubimus is about. We do not deny that the phenomenon of music all around us is interesting and important. But an engaged and participative approach to music making demands theories and techniques that take into account the current practices that shape creativity. And these practices cannot be fully grasped by focusing solely on the usage of musical products. It is significant that today we have music anytime, anywhere, by anyone (Pimenta et al., 2014), at the touch of a button. But to fully understand how these phenomena affect us as listeners and consumers, we may need to study how subjects and communities engage creatively with sound making. Therefore a feature of the contents of this volume (and of previous ubimus publications) is a distinction between the passive elements of the musical ubiquitousness and the active counterparts engaged during the creative activities. Furthermore, this active engagement cannot be based on preconceptions on musical genres, subcultures, styles, or formats; all forms of music making are equally valid as targets of ubimus research.

Thus, the term ubiquitous music may take several acceptances depending on the target, the context of usage, and the community involved. Of course, we do not claim ownership of the term. We see this widespread adoption as an opportunity to establish bridges among practitioners of diversified fields – bringing together studies in marketing (Abolhasani et al., 2017, Oakes et al., 2014), education (Thorgersen, 2014), tangible computing (Palaigeorgiou and Pouloulis, 2018), virtual reality (Bernardo et al., 2015), sonification (Barrass, 2015), or robotics (Camporez et al., 2018). The proposal championed by Quiñones et al. (2013) emphasises the aspects related to the usage of ready-made musical products. But at the same time, it points to an interesting potential for intersections with the research centred on little-c music phenomena discussed in this book (Chapter 2). What if the sonic layouts of everyday settings were open to creative interventions by casual participants? What if rather than imposing a musical product onto those present in transitional settings, the ubimus ecosystems were tailored for collaborative music making? These new scenarios present difficult challenges regarding the social impact of shared musical practices. But part of these issues are already under scrutiny in the ethnomusicologically oriented proposals.

The permanent expansion of the ubimus research fronts attests to the dangers of prematurely adopting corsets in targets, methods, or theoretical frameworks. The early ubimus projects and publications – grown out of the activities of the Ubiquitous Music Group (g-ubimus) and spanning what has been described as a first wave of exploratory research (2007–2014) – highlight the need for wide approaches to musical interaction and artistic practices (Keller et al., 2011). Despite setting sound as a central object of study, ubimus methods have always included elements of other sensorial modalities, they support music making in a wide diversity of formats and encourage the application of the expertise gained in other fields (Lima et al., 2012). Furthermore, the objects of study of music are not limited to the sonic products, usually constrained to the musical piece. As demonstrated in the projects described in this book, the targets of ubimus studies are activities – designerly, creative, artistic, educational, curatorial, or multidisciplinary – that demand technical knowledge from multiple fields. Therefore, the expanded notions of the musical phenomena suggested by Varese (Wen-Chung, 1966), Schafer (1977), and Small (1986) can be included as valid ubimus research targets.

1.2 Ubimus ecologies

The present publication stems from lines of research that predate ubimus and at the same time encounter a rich context to grow through the expanded affordances provided by current technology. The concept of ecology – entailing the integration of social and material factors that interact to shape socio-technological networks – can be traced back to the end of the 20th century. Ecologically inspired frameworks fostered diverse artistic proposals Burtner (2005), Keller (1998), Keller and Capasso (2006), Keller (2000). While some of these initiatives were heavily based on computational resources (Di Scipio, 2008, Keller, 2000, Opie and Brown, 2006), others made an imaginative use of instrumental and electroacoustic sonic means yielding artworks that are difficult to classify using 20th-century musicological molds (Aliel et al., 2018, Basanta, 2010, Connors, 2015, Gomes et al., 2014, Nance, 2018).

The previously mentioned breakthroughs in media computing embody a tendency of convergence and integration of diverse technologies. They serve as a transformational force behind the current practices in music and the digital arts, underpinning the emergence of ubimus. These new functionalities demand broader conceptual approaches which motivate a significant diversification in the roles and skills of the practitioners. In line with these demands, a recent community-constructed definition of ubimus proposes the study of systems of human agents and material resources that afford musical activities through creative support tools. Taking this definition as a starting point, Keller and Lazzarini (2017a) propose a substitution of the generic term tools by the concept of ubimus ecologies. They argue that the concept of tool – as adopted by the second-wave of human-computer interaction (Harrison et al., 2007) and inherited as a device-centric view on music making by the works targeting NIME² – may relegate to an ad hoc function some of the central issues of 21st century music practices.

It is important to note that the choice of ecologies to describe our approach in this volume is also partially based, as other aspects of ubimus, on the methods adopted by the computing and interaction design communities. Since the beginning of the century, the word ecosystem has been used to describe a set of applications, or software components, that were, either by design or by deployment, associated together in different configurations (Jung et al., 2008). From a music-making point of view, the operating system of a modern computer can be seen as an example of a software ecosystem Lazzarini (2017a). Another instance of such an ecosystem has arisen around the browser platform (its implications for ubimus are discussed in Chapter 10). We borrow from these ideas and extend the term into a wider view of ecologies: the interrelated components of ubimus, which may address musical, educational, technological, or creative concerns, or any intersection among these. In addition, we approach such ecologies as dynamic systems, where the changes and the rate of change of the system variables are as important as their instantaneous states.

Thus, using ecologies as a main thread, we look at a number of facets of ubimus research. The thematic areas we chose for this volume are professional music and multimedia design, creation and performance, the technologies of ubimus, the educational context, and everyday creativity. These choices are based on their significance and contribution to the ecologically grounded methods on music making and the digit...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of contributors
• 1 The ecologies of ubiquitous music
• 2 Everyday musical creativity
• 3 DIY electronics for ubiquitous music ecosystems
• 4 A brief report from the land of DIY
• 5 Interactive systems and their documentation: a perspective on multimedia installation art
• 6 Questions and challenges in ubiquitous creativity
• 7 Ubiquitous music research in basic-education contexts
• 8 Computational thinking in ubiquitous music ecologies
• 9 Ubiquitous music and the internet of musical things
• 10 The browser as a platform for ubiquitous music
• 11 Adaptive and crossadaptive strategies for composition and performance
• 12 The analogue computer as a musical instrument
• Index