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

BeatCatch is a high-level input device for creating and exploring rhythms. The focus of this work is on the expression and aesthetics of the interaction design, the level of control of the output perceived by the user and the width of the user group, stretching from novices to professionals. The BeatCatch prototype is made as an interactive metronome, which gives audile, visual and tactile feedback.

The author discusses research in music cognition and education indicating that novices and untrained students perceive and learn music in a fundamentally different manner than do expert musicians. Based on these studies, he suggests implementing high-level musical percepts and constructionist learning schemes in new expressive musical instruments that would provide thoughtful and joyful musical activities for novices and experts alike. The author describes several instruments---the Musical Playpen, Fireflies and Squeezables---that he has developed in an effort to provide novices with access to rich and meaningful musical experiences and recounts observations and interviews of subjects playing these instruments.

Ahandheld electronic musical instrument, named the BentoBox, was developed. The motivation was to develop an instrument which one can easily carry around and play in moments of free time, for example when riding public transportation or during short breaks at work. The device was designedtoenable quick learning by having various scales programmed for different styles of music, and also be expressive by having hand controlled timbral effects which can be manipulated while playing. Design analysis and iteration lead to a compact and ergonomic device. This paper focuses on the ergonomic design process of the hardware.