NIME Scores: A Systematic Review of How Scores Have Shaped Performance Ecologies in NIME

Abstract

This paper investigates how the concept of score has been used in the NIME community. To this end, we performed a systematic literature review of the NIME proceedings, analyzing papers in which scores play a central role. We analyzed the score not as an object per se but in relation to the users and the interactive system(s). In other words, we primarily looked at the role that scores play in the performance ecology. For this reason, to analyze the papers, we relied on ARCAA, a recent framework created to investigate artifact ecologies in computer music performances. Using the framework, we created a scheme for each paper and clustered the papers according to similarities. Our analysis produced five main categories that we present and discuss in relation to literature about musical scores.