A Percussion-Focussed Approach to Preserving Touch-Screen Improvisation

Abstract

Musical performances with touch-screen devices can be recorded by capturing a log of touch interactions. This object can serve as an archive or as a basis for other representations of the musical work. This chapter presents a protocol for recording ensemble touch-screen performances and details the processes for generating visualisations, gestural classifications, and graphical scores from these logs. Our experience of using these new representations to study a series of improvised ensemble performances with iPad-based digital musical instruments leads us to conclude that these new-media artefacts allow unique insights into ensemble interactions, comprehensive archiving of improvised performances, and the potential for re-synthesis into new performances and artworks.