Collaborative Textual Improvisation in a Laptop Ensemble

Abstract

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. Specialized improvisation environments for specific performances (e.g., Trueman 2008) or ensembles (e.g., Rebelo and Renaud 2006) can help groups to negotiate these challenges and structure their collaboration: The tools can create powerful new channels of networked communication among ensemble members to supplement aural and visual interaction. Textual performance environments are uniquely positioned in this regard: They potentially offer greater efficiency and flexibility in performance, and because text is already a dominant networked communication medium, they can draw from an abundance of interaction models in areas such as instant messaging, collaborative document editing, and the real-time Web.Although many text-based performance environments do support collaboration, most current systems are challenging to use with ensembles of more than a few musicians. As a result, we created a new textual performance environment for laptop ensemble named LOLC. (LOLC was initially an acronym for Laptop Orchestra Live Coding, though we now consider the applicability of the term "live coding" to be debatable.) From its inception, we designed LOLC to focus on ensemble-based collaboration. Though inspired by live coding systems, LOLC is not itself a programming language: It is neither Turing-complete nor does it allow its users to define new computational processes. Instead, its design, in which musicians create rhythmic patterns based on sound files and share and transform those patterns over a local network, facilitates an interaction paradigm inspired by other forms of ensemble improvisation, particularly in jazz and avant-garde music.In this article, we discuss the related work upon which LOLC builds; we outline the main goals of the LOLC environment; we describe the environment's design, its technical implementation, and the motivations behind some of our key decisions; and we evaluate its success through discussion of a recent performance. Related WorkThe design and implementation of LOLC was influenced b...

Network Socio-Synthesis and Emergence in NOMADS

“…This design is similar to that used by Jason Freeman's LOLC ensemble (Freeman 2011). This design is similar to that used by Jason Freeman's LOLC ensemble (Freeman 2011).…”

Turn-taking and Online Chatting in Remote and Co-located Collaborative Music Live Coding

“…Collaborative music live coding (CMLC) brings collaboration into live coding, a well-known musical improvisation practice in computer music. Using chat mechanisms has been found to support communication between the either co-located or remote live coders in CMLC [1,2,3,4]. A similar collab-orative live coding practice that organizes the group workflow in a turn-taking fashion between the roles of a driver and a navigator is pair programming [5], which is used in industry and computer science (CS) education.…”

Collaborative musical improvisation in a laptop ensemble with LOLC

“…We designed and developed LOLC [6] to take advantage of the unique potential of text-based performance environments in larger-ensemble collaborative improvisation and to build upon the rich history of collaborative improvisation in jazz and avant-garde musical styles. In LOLC, musical patterns are coded symbolically and shared automatically, providing a foundation through which laptop musicians can effectively improvise and collaborate by borrowing and transforming the material created by others in the ensemble.…”

“…We consider the degree to which LOLC facilitated collaborative improvisation among the musicians and the degree to which LOLC was accessible to nonprogrammers to learn. For detailed information on the LOLC environment itself and our motivations for creating it, see [6].…”