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Online Networking and Real-Time Interaction for Musicians

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Online Networking and Real-Time Interaction for Musicians Examensarbete 30hp June 3, 2021 Online networking and real-time interaction for musicians Ester Kylmanen¨ Emma Tysk Civilingenjorsprogrammet¨ i informationsteknologi Master Programme in Computer and Information Engineering Abstract Institutionen for¨ Online networking and real-time interaction for informationsteknologi musicians Besoksadress:¨ ITC, Polacksbacken Lagerhyddsv¨ agen¨ 2 Ester Kylmanen¨ Emma Tysk Postadress: Box 337 751 05 Uppsala Despite the many technological advancements made in the music Hemsida: industry in recent years, there is still not a single widely adopted http:/www.it.uu.se platform for musicians to play music together online. In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent quarantine pushed the need for such a platform into the spotlight. As a response, the music company Elk Audio launched their new product: Aloha. Aloha is a combined hardware and web application that allows musicians to play music in real-time over the Internet. Aloha is currently only intended for musicians who already know each other to connect and play. However, Elk’s ambition is to make it the go-to platform for musicians to expand their network. The purpose of this Master’s Thesis is to design the next version of the web application of Aloha, focusing on social interactions. This Master’s Thesis investigates musicians’ current social and musical behaviour, and their opinions of how this can be done online. Qualitative data was col- lected by performing semi-structured interviews with musicians of dif- ferent backgrounds. The study revealed many different goals and needs of potential users of Aloha. Furthermore, we found several determining factors which enable and encourage musicians to form new musical re- lationships online. The final suggested design is based on the analysed data and founded in theory regarding persuasive and recommending sys- tem design, among others. Handledare: Ilias Bergstrom¨ Amnesgranskare:¨ Mikael Laaksoharju Examinator: Lars-Ake˚ Noren´ Sammanfattning Trots de tekniska framstegen som gjorts inom musikindustrin de senaste aren,˚ finns det fortfarande inte ett enda allmant¨ accepterat alternativ for¨ musiker att spela musik till- sammans online. Covid-19 pandemin och den atf˚ oljande¨ karantanten¨ forde¨ behovet for¨ en sadan˚ plattform till rampljuset. I borjan¨ av ar˚ 2020 insag˚ musikforetaget¨ Elk Audio att de kunde fylla denna lucka med sin nya produkt: Aloha. Aloha ar¨ en kombinerad hardvara˚ och webbapplikation som mojligg¨ or¨ musiker att spela musik i realtid over¨ In- ternet. Aloha ar¨ for¨ narvarande¨ endast avsedd for¨ musiker som redan kanner¨ varandra. Elks ambition ar¨ dock att gora¨ Aloha till en plattform for¨ musiker dar¨ de kan utoka¨ sitt musikaliska natverk.¨ Syftet med detta examensarbete ar¨ att utforma nasta¨ version av Alohas webbapplikation, med fokus pa˚ sociala interaktioner. Detta examensarbete undersoker¨ musikers nuvaran- de sociala och musikaliska beteenden och deras asikter˚ om musikaliska interaktioner online. Kvalitativa data samlades in genom att utfora¨ halvstrukturerade intervjuer med musiker fran˚ olika bakgrunder. Studien avslojade¨ de manga˚ olika malen˚ och behoven hos potentiella anvandare¨ av Aloha. Dessutom fann vi flera avgorande¨ faktorer som mojligg¨ or¨ och uppmuntrar musiker att skapa och underhalla˚ nya musikrelationer onli- ne. Den slutliga foreslagna¨ designen baseras pa˚ det analyserade datat och grundas i teori om design av rekommendationssystem, m. fl.. ii Division of work During the work of this Master’s Thesis, Ester had the main responsibility for the re- port, but we continuously worked together to create the content and write this report. We both collected articles, books and reports on the subjects of the report. For the sec- tion detailing the theory for this report, Section 4, Ester was responsible for collecting information regarding ”Determine musical ability”, ”Design to encourage networking” and ”User on-boarding”. Emma, in turn, was responsible for the section on ”Designing recommender systems”. This thesis project also involved semi-structured interviews with musicians to collect qualitative data, which was analysed using a thematic approach. For the semi-structured interviews, Emma held the interviews and Ester took notes. The thematic analysis work was divided equally. Emma had the main responsibility for the prototyping stage. However, we continuously worked together to find designs which we both agreed were best suited for this project. iii Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 Background 2 2.1 Real-time musical interaction . .2 2.2 Impact of network latency . .3 2.2.1 Elk Audio - Aloha . .4 2.3 Musical networking . .5 2.4 Aloha 2.0 - Combining musical networking and real-time interaction . .6 3 Goals, scope and delimitations 7 3.1 Project goal: Aloha 2.0 . .7 3.1.1 Research questions . .7 3.2 Delimitations . .8 3.2.1 Effects of latency . .8 3.2.2 Algorithm recommendation system . .8 3.2.3 Product implementation . .8 4 Theory 9 4.1 Design to encourage networking . .9 4.2 User on-boarding . 10 4.3 Designing recommender systems . 11 4.4 Determine musical ability . 12 5 Related work 13 5.1 Real-time musical interaction platforms . 15 iv 5.1.1 JamKazam . 15 5.1.2 Jamulus and jammr . 17 5.2 Musical network platforms . 18 5.2.1 AMY . 18 5.2.2 Drooble . 19 5.2.3 Band on the Web . 19 5.2.4 Vampr . 20 5.3 Assessing a Collaborative Online Environment for Music Composition . 21 6 Method 21 6.1 Data elicitation . 22 6.1.1 Understanding the client . 22 6.1.2 Competitor analysis . 23 6.1.3 Semi-structured interviews . 23 6.1.4 Participants . 24 6.2 Thematic analysis . 25 6.3 Data modeling . 27 6.3.1 User personas . 27 6.4 User stories . 28 6.5 Prototyping . 28 7 Results 29 7.1 Thematic analysis . 29 7.1.1 Building relationships . 29 7.1.2 Playing together . 31 7.1.3 Determine musical compatibility . 33 v 7.2 User personas . 34 8 Design prototype 37 8.1 Terminology . 38 8.1.1 Session . 38 8.1.2 Collaborations, groups and bands . 38 8.1.3 Randomiser . 39 8.2 Aloha 2.0 - Navigation and layout . 39 8.3 UI elements . 42 8.3.1 Tags . 42 8.3.2 Three dot icon . 44 8.3.3 Recommendation cards . 44 8.3.4 Ad cards . 48 8.3.5 Musician, group/band, session cards . 49 8.4 Discover page . 51 8.5 User profile . 53 8.5.1 About . 54 8.5.2 Showcasing musical skill on the profile . 55 8.5.3 Relationships . 56 8.5.4 My groups & bands . 58 8.5.5 Ads . 60 8.6 Ad detail page . 61 8.7 Groups & Bands and Musicians page . 63 8.8 Group and Band profile . 65 8.9 Sessions page . 66 vi 8.10 User on-boarding . 67 9 Discussion 71 9.1 Ethics in social media . 72 9.2 Copyright . 73 9.3 Ethics in data collection . 73 10 Conclusion 74 11 Future work 75 11.1 Playing together . 75 11.1.1 Teaching . 76 11.2 Professional use of Aloha . 76 11.3 Backtracking community . 77 A Interview protocol 83 B Thematic analysis 87 B.1 Themes . 88 B.2 Codes . 93 vii 1 Introduction 1 Introduction Throughout history, new musical forms and development have been closely linked to advances in technology. In fact, the music industry is one of the areas which have been significantly affected by digital technologies, from everything between creation, production, distribution and consumption [DLM11, Wil20b]. For example, new mu- sic products have emerged to investigate customers’ music sharing habits, in order to adapt to dynamic market demands [DLM11]. Music giants such as Spotify have created highly intelligent music recommender systems, which has diminished the threshold for exploring new genres and musicians to a click of a button. In addition, social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook have made it possible for artists to connect and engage more directly with their fans all over the world. Despite the massive impact that digital technologies have had on music availability, quality, consumption, etc., there is one important area which still lacks a cohesive digital platform. When it comes to online musical interactions between musicians, such as networking, collaboration and real-time music creation, there is currently no widely adopted online platform on the market [Wil20b]. The reasons for this low adoption are many. An evident problem is physical distance: even if you find a good musical match online, they might be located in another town. To physically meet up might be inconvenient or even impossible, and if you want to play online you have to cope with difficult technical setups and network latency. Latency is a crucial aspect of real-time online music playing, as it defines the time you have to wait to hear a response. High latency means high lag, which makes it impossible to synchronise instruments and play together [Wri05]. No solution has been made which achieves unnoticeable latency for long distance online playing, until now. In the beginning of 2020, Elk launched their new product: Aloha. Aloha is a hard- ware device and web application, which allows musicians to play online with the lowest possible latency [Elk19a]. The current version of Aloha is only intended for musicians who already know each other to connect and play, and lacks any social and networking features, which would enable new musical interactions and networks to form. This is where our Master’s Thesis comes in. The purpose of this project was to design the next version of the web-based interface of Aloha, focusing on social interactions. The goal is to make it the go-to alternative to playing together physically, and a destination for musicians to expand their network and make new musical connections and collaborations. To understand the goals and needs of the potential users, we collected qualitative data by performing semi-structured interviews.
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