Guidelines for composing locative soundtracks
Publication Date
July 15, 2016
Creator
Abstract
This thesis investigates the composition of original adaptive musical soundtracks for locative walking activities such as cultural visiting, mobile games and urban, and nature walks; those semi-formal orchestrated walking experiences. This investigation views the ‘soundtrack’ – similarly to those typically found in ‘display’ media experiences such as films and computer games – as an accompaniment rather than the principal feature of the experience. Thus its role is to support and enhance the walking ‘narrative’. In order to best achieve this the soundtrack needs to be heard as congruent and embedded into the activity.
This thesis is oriented towards the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and also at composers of such soundtracks; reflecting the thesis’s intention to develop guidelines for locative soundtrack composition that draws upon detailed mappings between musical structure and spatial structure that drives the creation and experience of both.
An initial study explored how a group of participants interpreted and responded to different musical features which adapted to their walking routes. This study revealed that participants formed a set of connections between the physical space and the musical structures. These findings were then used to motivate an in-the-field design, composition and deployment of a large-scale adaptive soundtrack for a public cultural visiting experience, which was subsequently experienced by a group of visitors. This study revealed that the soundtrack was considered congruent with the activity and was deeply engaging, quite distinct from a typical visit to this site. These research activities are reflected upon and discussed to distil a framework of guidelines for composing locative soundtracks that is generalizable to other settings and activities.
Item Type
ethesis
Thesis Type
PhD
Supervisors
Subjects (LC)
Associated Schools / Departments
School of Computer Science (UK)
eprints ID
31967
UoN Repository URI
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Name
Hazzard_Guidelines_ethesis.pdf
Type
Full-text
Description
Examined
Size
46.56 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
650c3a672ad38406f7eb92faa6e926ef