Music 256A, Week 7
Chapter 7 of Artful Design discusses social design, how we design interfaces and experiences for our selves, our loved ones, our friends, acquaintances, people we kind of know, and total strangers alike. Moreover, it discusses how we can embed sociality in games, instruments, and interfaces. Apps/instruments/games like Ocarina (Globe), Leaf Trombone World Stage, Smule Sing!, Smule Glee, and Magic Piano (One-on-one) are all examples presented in the chapter that integrate social-media-esque interactive components to enhance the game experience and connect users across the globe. Unlike the mainstream social medias of the day (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter), these apps provide an anonymous social environment focused on group art-making. Anonymity affords comfort of expression... it helps to know that you aren't singing for your best friend or acquaintances and instead you are singing for someone across the globe who you will likely never meet. More than simply provide a social musical experience mediated through your mobile device, several of these apps actually gamify this sociality... For example, Leaf Trombone World Stage requires that you collect a certain number of performance tokens (i.e. perform a certain number of times) before you can "judge" another player's performance... This encourages the user to get experience with the app before critiquing others, hopefully making their feedback not only more insightful and honest, but sympathetic.
I have imagined a few social or user-interactive media apps:
1) An application that is effectively a music album, but that presents interactive visuals which modify the sonic content... Individual users could either sit and listen/watch the default content of the album, or they could swipe and tap things on the screen to modify and navigate the content of the album in their own way. This could be extended past the user to the a larger social media platform in which users share their "experiences" or "performances" of the musical work... Or users could collaboratively shape the optimal gesture/swipe combination for best experiencing the album. This could vary from, or simply enhance, the artist's original intent.
2) A music streaming service that allows listeners to sync what they are listening to, create remote listening groups, invite or remove listeners from their group, comment (with their actual voices, like a phone call, or via text) in real time at specific places in the track, and generally experience listening to music socially even while on the go. So rarely do people sit and listen to an album, or even one full song, together... Our attention spans are approaching zero and that trend will inevitably continue until technology fights to reverse it. I think an app like this, a group listening music streaming platform, would compel people to listen more deeply because they are engaging in the music with other people (as music was originally designed/intended to be "consumed). You want to listen, because you want to be able to comment on the music to your friends and develop your shared knowledge or experience of the tune/piece.
Beyond social music apps that are designed to bring people together, it is interesting to imagine interfaces in which sociality is harnessed as a tool to modify the interface's own design or content. For example, imagine an app in which users constructively create or modify the app environment itself... like multi-player Minecraft, but it generates music or audiovisual art. Perhaps this is equivalent to high-level collaborative coding. Can we design musical tools that harness sociality to create genuinely compelling new music and art?
I have imagined a few social or user-interactive media apps:
1) An application that is effectively a music album, but that presents interactive visuals which modify the sonic content... Individual users could either sit and listen/watch the default content of the album, or they could swipe and tap things on the screen to modify and navigate the content of the album in their own way. This could be extended past the user to the a larger social media platform in which users share their "experiences" or "performances" of the musical work... Or users could collaboratively shape the optimal gesture/swipe combination for best experiencing the album. This could vary from, or simply enhance, the artist's original intent.
2) A music streaming service that allows listeners to sync what they are listening to, create remote listening groups, invite or remove listeners from their group, comment (with their actual voices, like a phone call, or via text) in real time at specific places in the track, and generally experience listening to music socially even while on the go. So rarely do people sit and listen to an album, or even one full song, together... Our attention spans are approaching zero and that trend will inevitably continue until technology fights to reverse it. I think an app like this, a group listening music streaming platform, would compel people to listen more deeply because they are engaging in the music with other people (as music was originally designed/intended to be "consumed). You want to listen, because you want to be able to comment on the music to your friends and develop your shared knowledge or experience of the tune/piece.
Beyond social music apps that are designed to bring people together, it is interesting to imagine interfaces in which sociality is harnessed as a tool to modify the interface's own design or content. For example, imagine an app in which users constructively create or modify the app environment itself... like multi-player Minecraft, but it generates music or audiovisual art. Perhaps this is equivalent to high-level collaborative coding. Can we design musical tools that harness sociality to create genuinely compelling new music and art?
