CMJ special issue on Mapping

Call for Submissions – CMJ Special Issue: “Advances in the Design of Mapping for Computer Music”, Marcelo M. Wanderley and Joseph Malloch, Guest Editors.

When we use digital tools for making music, the properties and parameters of both sound synthesizers and human interfaces have an abstract representation. One consequence of the digital nature of these signals and states is that gesture and action are completely separable from sound production, and must be artificially associated by the system designer in a process commonly called mapping.

The importance of mapping in digital musical instruments has been studied since the early 1990s, with several works discussing the role of mapping and many related concepts. Since roughly the mid-2000s, several tools have been proposed to facilitate the implementation of mappings, drastically reducing the necessary technical knowledge and allowing a large community to easily implement their ideas. Coupled with the availability of inexpensive sensors and hardware, as well as the emergence of a strong Do-It-Yourself community, the time seems right to discuss the main directions for research on mapping in digital musical instruments and interactive systems.

This call for submissions for a special issue of the Computer Music Journal focuses on recent developments and future prospects of mapping.

Relevant topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Mapping in instrument/installation/interaction design
  • Mapping concepts and approaches
  • Mapping tools
  • Evaluation methodologies
  • Mapping in/as composition
  • Mapping for media other than, or in addition to, sound

Deadline for paper submission is March 15, 2013. The issue will appear in 2014. Submissions should follow all CMJ author guidelines (http://www.mitpressjournals.org/page/sub/comj). Submissions and queries should be addressed to marcelo.wanderley@mcgill.ca, with the subject starting with [CMJ Mapping]

Master’s thesis posted

Despite the fact that I first submitted my Master’s thesis last June, various hold-ups have postponed the final submission… until now! And since McGill has their copies, I have also posted it online here. The title is A Consort of Gestural Musical Controllers: Design, Construction, and Performance and primarily concerns the “T-Sticks” – a family/consort of digital musical instruments I built at the IDMIL. Two of the T-Sticks will be performed this March 5 as part of the MusiMars/MusiMarch festival in Montréal.