On the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness in Musical Interface Design

Abstract

Research in musical interaction has been widely addressed in recent years. The term “musical expression” plays a key role in this field of research as the name of the biggest scientific conference in musical interaction “New Interfaces for Musical Expression” (nime.org) already shows. While in music and musicology the assumption is often found that mind and body act co-presently in musical performance, the research scene of music interaction essentially finds approaches that leave the mind more or less aside when models of interaction are developed, although the term "musical expression" can very well be assigned to the mind. While a huge number of musical interface development research projects have been done worldwide (Fasciani & Goode, 2021), research outcome of this scene had nearly no impact on the products musicians nowadays buy and use in their daily musical practice (Poepel & Juergens, 2022). The question arises which could be the reasons for such fruitlessness.

This paper presents an analysis of common music interaction research strategies and their assumed foundations. It shows requirements commonly found in the development of musical interfaces. It further presents understandings of music given by well-known musicians and draws conclusions which requirements for musical interaction come up facing these understandings of music and music making. The differences in the requirements of both sources are contrasted. With respect to the Whiteheadian fallacy of misplaced concreteness, these differences are analyzed. In addition, the possible meaning of the Whiteheadian findings for the general research field of musical interaction is discussed.

While the research outcome of musical interface design for the music technology market was rather small, simple music interfaces like MIDI keyboards and further digital sound generators connected to them as well as digital audio workstations are very commonly used in daily musical creative practice. The theories and models implemented in such devices could be classified as related examples of misplaced concreteness according to Whitehead. Nevertheless, these devices are used by many musicians. But the way of making music and the music itself, which is then created, is changing. This is shown by concrete little examples of making music and it is further discussed in a speculative manner.

With respect to the Whitehedian fallacy of misplaced concreteness and its possible meaning for musical interaction design, conclusions for the general area of human-computer interaction are drawn.

References:

Fasciani, S; Goode, J. (2021). 20 NIMEs: Twenty Years of New Interfaces for Musical Expression. In Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2021), Singapore.

Poepel, C.; Juergens, E. (2022). On Overcoming the Gap between Industry and Academic Research in the Field of Music Technology, Proceedings of the 4th International Conference Business Meets Technology, Ansbach.

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