Make the Unhearable Visible: Exploring Visualization for Musical Instrument Practice

Area of Science:

• Human-Computer Interaction
• Music Education Technology
• Data Visualization

Background:

• Musicians face challenges in identifying and interpreting playing patterns during practice.
• Existing methods for practice feedback may not adequately address the complexity of musical performance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the potential of interactive visualization for supporting musicians' instrument practice.
• To develop and evaluate design considerations for visualizations that make musical patterns visible and actionable.

Main Methods:

• Conducted a design exploration creating and iterating on 33 distinct visualization designs.
• Gathered insights from 18 musicians and evaluated designs with 13 music learners and teachers.
• Focused designs on specific subsets of musical needs (e.g., single musical skill).

Main Results:

• Presented example visualizations demonstrating how to make unhearable aspects of playing visible.
• Identified design considerations for creating effective instrument practice visualizations.
• Highlighted the diversity of needs across instruments, skills, and genres.

Conclusions:

• Interactive visualizations offer significant potential to enhance instrument practice and music education.
• Future research and products can leverage these design considerations for visual instrument learning tools.
• Making musical patterns visible can lead to more effective practice and skill development.