Henrik Bygdeman och Love Larsson

Musicians attitude to using iOS products for music making in electronic music

Abstract

The rapid development of new music applications for smartphones and tablets enables musicians to create and play music in entirely new ways and settings. This study will examine what opportunities you are given as a musician with a smartphone or tablet. It also examines how professional musicians uses these applications in their music, and tries, with help of interviews, to get their opinions on these new interactions for musical expression. Interviews are also conducted with a number of companies that develop music applications, to improve the understanding of the work behind these, and to enable the reader of the study to catch a glimpse of the future of their use in electronic music. A survey is also conducted among possible audience members to find out if using a smartphone or tablet on stage is widely accepted or not.

The result shows that mobile devices offer great musical opportunities, because of the vast amount of available music applications. These are designed either to facilitate the work of musicians or to present those with opportunities and the ability to create and play music. Musicians use mobile devices to different degrees, most of them use these as sound-generators. Most of the musicians agreed that the use of mobile devices in electronic music would be more common in the future.

The audience member’s opinions of mobile devices on stage were fragmented. This could be a consequence of these devices not yet being established in electronic music, and thus the masses have difficulty accepting them in a musical context.

The companies view smartphones and tablets as great tools for music making, but are unsure of what the future holds. Smaller companies could have a hard time making profit on the development of music applications, due to the current pricing of applications.