Gestural Musical Affordances

This paper is a comparative study of gestural interaction with musical sound, designed to gain insight into the notion of musical affordance on interactive music systems. We conducted an interview base user study trialing three accelerometer based devices, an iPhone, a Wii-mote, and an Axivity Wax prototype, with four kinds of musical sound, including percussion, stringed instruments, and voice recordings. The accelerometers from the devices were mapped to computer based sound synthesis parameters. By using consistent mappings across different source sounds, and performing them from the three different devices, users experienced forms of physical, sonic, and cultural affordance, that combine to form what we term musical affordance.