This assignment was made in collaboration with Marcela Mancino.
Exercise prompt:
Based on Baco Exu do Blues’ song Minotauro de Borges, develop an interactive musical experience concept using the following Oblique Strategy: “don’t be afraid of doing things just because they are easy to do”.
Catalog of Attributes
The first step was to make a catalog of Attributes list of the elements we could perceive in the song. We only got as far as listing the different instruments that we were able to identify, which ended up defining seven layers of sound inside the song. Approaching this list with the Oblique Strategy we got, we decided to take the simplest approach that came to our minds, which was to add interactivity to a live performance (or is it a rehearsal?) of the song.
The concept:
A controllable live performance in a music hall, composed by seven musicians and 300+ “audience members” – that are, in fact, also part of the performance. The only actual audience member/user is put in between the musicians and the crowd, and they are able to give the following instructions:
Single play: A specific musician starts playing;
Single pause: A specific musician stops playing, getting back from where they left off when called again;
Single stop: A specific musician stops playing, restarting the song when called again;
Solo: A specific musician starts or continues to play, while everyone else stops;
Collective play: The whole band starts playing;
Collective pause: The whole band stops playing, getting back from where they left off when called again;
Collective stop: The whole band stops playing, restarting the song when called again;
Clap: Audience claps;
Stop clapping: Audience stops clapping;
Sing together: Audience sings along;
Silent crowd: Audience stops singing;
The users enter the venue one by one, and they conduct the performance whichever way they want. Both the crowd and the musicians – lead singer, background singer, percussionist, cavaquinho player, beatboxer, radio operator (samples), beat maker – play their parts in the song as a loop, following the instructions of the conductor.
Sketch:
