Church Belles

Real-world metaphors, particularly those that model physical behaviours, have been used as a design strategy in interactive systems to facilitate both user and audience understanding (Johnston, 2013). Whether grounded in the laws of physics or cultural norms, real-world objects and behaviours represent shared knowledge for composers, performers and audiences (Waite, 2016; Waite, 2017a), and can therefore engage audiences through providing an element of familiarity. This is supported by the extensive use of metaphor as a composition strategy (Emmerson, 2007; Demers, 2010) and that combine experiences from both within and outside of music (Smalley, 1996). This piece explores how a metaphor can be used as the framework for an interactive system and composition to convey both the technical functioning of the system in the pursuit of demonstrating various aspects of liveness (Sanden, 2013). Virtual bells were created in software which are 'rung' by specific notes on the guitar to drive samplers, synthesisers and live effects. The narrative of the piece is supported by the use of score-following to dynamically alter the system behaviour at different points during the piece. Liveness is achieved through the minimal use of sequenced material and the balance of unpredictable, complex audio output with harmonic and rhythmic coherence. The use of dynamic system behaviour was a particular strength as this led to unforeseen compositional developments that brought additional variety and depth to the song. The piece was performed and presented at several conferences and festivals including the MTI Concert series 2016 (De Montfort University) Leeds Festival of Artistic Innovation 2016, NIME 2016 (Griffith University, Brisbane), Tracking the Creative Process in Music 2017 (Huddersfield University), Innovations in Music 2017 (University of Westminster) and Loop 2017 (Berlin). The software has also been made available for download on the author's website