In recent years we have seen a proliferation of musical tables. Believing that this is not just the result of a tabletop trend, in this paper we first discuss several of the reasons for which live music performance and HCI in general, and musical instruments and tabletop interfaces in particular, can lead to a fertile two-way cross-pollination that can equally benefit both fields. After that, we present the reacTable, a musical instrument based on a tabletop interface that exemplifies several of these potential achievements. Author Keywords Tangible interfaces, tabletop interfaces, musical instrument, musical performance, design, interaction techniques. ACM Classification Keywords H.5.2 [User Interfaces]: interaction styles, input devices and strategies J.5: [Arts and Humanities]: performing arts.

This paper first introduces two previous software-based music instruments designed by the author, and analyses the crucial importance of the visual feedback introduced by their interfaces. A quick taxonomy and analysis of the visual components in current trends of interactive music software is then proposed, before introducing the reacTable*, a new project that is currently under development. The reacTable* is a collaborative music instrument, aimed both at novices and advanced musicians, which employs computer vision and tangible interfaces technologies, and pushes further the visual feedback interface ideas and techniques aforementioned.

This article reflects the current state of the reacTable* project, an electronic music instrument with a tangible table-based interface, which is currently under development at the Audiovisual Institute at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. In this paper we are focussing on the issue of Dynamic Patching, which is a particular and unique aspect of the sound synthesis and control paradigms of the reacTable*. Unlike common visual programming languages for sound synthesis, which conceptually separate the patch building process from the actual musical performance, the reacTable* combines the construction and playing of the instrument in a unique way.

Music today is more ubiquitous, accessible, and democratized than ever. Thanks to technologies such as high-end home studios, audio compression, and digital distribution, music now surrounds us in everyday life, almost every piece of music is a few minutes of download away, and almost any western musician, novice or expert, can compose, perform and distribute their music directly to their listeners from their home studios. But at the same time these technologies lead to some concerning social effects on the culture of consuming and creating music. Although music is available for more people, in more locations, and for longer periods of time, most listeners experience it in an incidental, unengaged, or utilitarian manner. On the creation side, home studios promote private and isolated practice of music making where hardly any musical instruments or even musicians are needed, and where the value of live

When envisaging new digital instruments, designers do not have to limit themselves to their sonic capabilities (which can be absolutely any), not even to their algorithmic power; they must be also especially careful about the instruments' conceptual capabilities, to the ways instruments impose or suggest to their players new ways of thinking, new ways of establishing relations, new ways of interacting, new ways of organizing time and textures; new ways, in short, of playing new musics. This article explores the dynamic relation that builds between the player and the instrument, introducing concepts such as efficiency, apprenticeship and learning curve It aims at constructing a framework in which the possibilities and the diversity of music instruments as well as the possibilities and the expressive freedom of human music performers could start being evaluated.

Since telecommunication can never equal the richness of face-to-face interaction on its own terms, the most interesting examples of networked music go beyond the paradigm of musicians playing together in a virtual room. The Open Sound Control protocol has facilitated dozens of such innovative networked music projects. First the protocol itself is described, followed by some theoretical limits on communication latency and what they mean for music making. Then a representative list of some of the projects that take advantage of the protocol is presented, describing each project in terms of the paradigm of musical interaction that it provides. 1.

New digital musical instruments designed for professional and trained musicians can be quite complex and challenging, offering as a counterpart a great amount of creative freedom and control possibilities to their players. On the other hand, instruments designed for amateur musicians or for audiences in interactive sound installations, tend to be quite simple, often trying to bring the illusion of control and interaction to their users, while still producing 'satisfactory' outputs. Logically, these two classes of instruments are often mutually exclusive. But wouldn't it be possible to design instruments that can appeal to both sectors? In this paper we will show , with two projects developed in our research group, how visual feedback can highly increase the intuitiveness of an interactive music system, making complex principles understandable.

This paper describes work in progress for the development of a gestural controller interface for contemporary vocal performance and electronic processing. The paper includes a preliminary investigation of the gestures and movements of vocalists who use microphones and microphone stands. This repertoire of gestures formsthe foundation of a well-practiced `language' and social code for communication between performersand audiences andservesasabasisfor alternate controller design principles. A prototype design, based on a modified microphone stand, is presented along with a discussion of possible controller mapping strategies and identification of directions for future research.

This paper presents a technique for enhancing music information by annotation, and we apply the technique of annotated music to a collaborative music creation system on the Web, Music Resonator (MR). In MR, a user retrieves music fragments from Pool, processes them on Operation Diagram Editor and shares new music fragments with others, just as people readily exchange emails through mobile phones. Since a music fragment in MR is annotated with analysis results based on music theory, a user can perform complicated, skillbased tasks easily and properly. The result of a preliminary evaluation using the current implementation supports the significance of annotated music. 1

In this paper we describe object design considerations for the reacTable* project, a novel tangible musical instrument, developed at the Audiovisual Institute at the Universiat Pompeu Fabra. The work presented in this paper is the result of a collaboration with the Palpable Machines Group at Media Lab Europe, which focussed on haptic design aspects of the reacTable* instrument. We present a simple haptic encoding scheme for the mapping of abstract sound synthesis objects onto tangible proxy objects.