The Network Unveiled: Evaluating Tele-musical Interaction

Abstract

This chapter outlines a multimodal framework for the analysis of interaction in networked improvisatory musical performance. The framework has been designed as a tool to evaluate the creative and cognitive approaches taken by expert cross-cultural musicians when navigating a dislocated networked experience in unfamiliar musical terrain. Potentially these ideas are applicable across a range of collaborative and interactive media. The methodology employs a social semiotic perspective and draws on the related field of cognitive linguistics to analyse the ways in which the qualities of sound (timbre) in melodic interaction are perceived and acted upon by networked musicians. Case studies consisting of audio-visual recordings and transcripts of musicians’ post-performance reflections provided the data for investigating representation, interpretation and response in improvised musical interaction. While much existing networked music research focuses on technologies for improving and expanding interaction, as the title of this chapter suggests, there is a need for an evaluative framework and language for ‘unveiling’ or ‘revealing’ musicians’ creative and strategic thought-processes. For networked musicians, this involves negotiating the unknown in first encounters with new musical cultures, interacting via new musical languages, practices, expectations and potentially unfamiliar instruments. These unprecedented experiences enabled by networked technologies create the motivation for further qualitative analysis of networked interaction.