EMI Survey

Digital musical instruments are frequently designed in research and experimental performance contexts but few are taken up into sustained use by active and professional musicians. To identify the needs of performers who use novel technologies in their practices, a survey of musicians was conducted that identified desirable qualities for instruments to be viable in active use, along with attributes for successful uptake and continued use of instruments based on frameworks of long and short term user engagement. The findings are presented as a set of design considerations towards the development of instruments intended for use by active and professional performers.

Website: emisurvey.johnnyvenom.com

This survey was carried out as part of my doctoral research at the Input Devices and Music Interaction Laboratory (IDMIL). Initial findings were presented at the 2019 International Symposium on Computer Music Multidisciplinary Research (CMMR) in Marseille, France. The complete results of the study appear in my Ph.D. dissertation on digital musical instrument design for professional performers and are published in the Journal for New Music Research.

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