Collaborative Textual Improvisation in a Laptop Ensemble

摘要

For us, text-based performance interfaces, such as those used in live coding systems (Collins et al. 2003), are a fascinating fusion of composition and improvisation. Textual performance interfaces can offer a precise and concise means to define, manipulate, and transform motives, gestures, and processes in real time and at multiple hierarchical layers. They can also render musical thinking visible to the audience by projecting the text as it is written. We are particularly interested in textual performance interfaces in laptop ensemble contexts. We believe that the dynamics of ensemble performance can lead laptop musicians in new creative directions, pushing them towards more real-time creativity and combining the diverse skills, ideas, and schemas of the ensemble's members to create unexpected, novel music in performance. But when laptop performance interfaces move beyond simple one-to-one mappings, they present unique ensemble challenges, particularly in terms of the synchronization and sharing of musical material.