ZIYUE QI
RESEARCH QUESTION
Literature Review
I began my research by focusing on embodied cognition and music. I wanted to explore different types of learning, and how to teach something that is learned through sensor-motor practices. Through my literature review, I came across many articles written by Dr. Marc Leman on embodied cognition and music. He has performed many experiments related to how music can influence our motion and vice versa. One article specifically, however, centered on the differences in working with digital music tools and traditional acoustic instruments. This paper demonstrated how learning a digital music tool is less embodied, and more symbolic, which made me ask the question, How can learn a digital tool be improved through traditional, embodied ways of learning such as when learning acoustic instruments?
METHODS
My research from this project is based on previous knowledge and experience with DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) and some experience with musical instruments. The primary DAW I am focusing my research on is Pro Tools, as this is the industry standard for music mixing and recording, as well as one of the more visually complex DAWs (for new users). From this, I was curious to see how musicians and non-musicians both approach digital music tools. I did this by interviewing someone who is very experienced with making music, someone who is well versed with the digital workstation and has musical background but is not expertly trained, and a non-musician who was first introduced to a digital workstation and has no experience in acoustic instruments.
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I did this by observing how each subject went about creating music and mixing music, and interviewing them on their backgrounds in music and their own methods arranging and creating music. I targeted individuals who are relatively new to this process, as their memory of how they learned both acoustic and digital instruments are fresh. I was also curious about their preferred methods of learning in general, and asked them about what some pain points are when learning a digital music tool.
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The main questions I asked each subject were:
What is your preferred operating system?
What is your musical background?
If you have musical background, how do you think it helped in learning DAWs?
What are the main functions you perform on Pro Tools?
What are your goals in regards to learning Pro Tools?
What are the most difficult functions/tools you find on Pro Tools?
What is your preferred method of learning?
If you could create a magical tool to make anything easier in your mixing/production process on Pro Tools, what would it be?
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TRAINED MUSICIAN
RECORDING ENTHUSIAST
NO MUSICAL BACKGROUND
USER INTERVIEW SUMMARIES
Major Pain Points
February 26, 2020
THE FUTURE RECORDING ENGINEER
- Music Skills and understanding how to listen is important
- Coming in with general music theory is useful
- Enjoys having a lot of functions and more opportunities to be creative
- Working with flow, working with hotkeys helps with working at speed of creativity
- Experience with the interface makes it more enjoyable
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March 8, 2020
COMPOSING ON DIFFERENT INTERFACES
- Comfortable with what he knows
- Less functions better, cleaner, easier to use
- Doesn't like to learn something until the need comes up
- Works with a purpose; likes to be efficient
- Lots of experience with performing music, want to be able to translate musical ideas in head to an interface quickly
- Aesthetics important; doesn't like things too cluttered
March 23, 2020
NO BACKGROUND IN MUSIC
- Uses creative ways to create chords and melodies
- Requires visual feedback to learn
- Too many functions overwhelming, hard to even teach yourself simple functions
- Separation between music theory and using a Digital Audio Workstation
- Can draw notes on DAW to create music
SCENARIO #1
The Music Enthusiast
Erick is a student in high school. He has big dreams of becoming a recording engineer, but for now he just wants to learn how to record music and produce music on his own with his microphone. He has been looking around at different digital audio workstations, and has some experience with Garageband, but would like to learn a program that is more of an industry-standard.
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When first looking at the interface, he becomes a little overwhelmed by how many functions there are. Over time, he goes on Youtube to look up tutorials, but finds it very difficult to learn on his own.
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A few years later, with some in-class instruction on ProTools and getting ProTools certified, he finds out that ProTools has implemented a new walk-through tutorial setting. Through this feature, he is able to navigate the program much more easily. Though he is already quite skilled at this point, he still wants to learn new functions that he may not use too commonly. In the walk-through tutorial, he finds a section on mastering music, which he has not learned before. He goes through the walk-through tutorial, which he realizes is similar to the ProTools instruction manual but integrated into the interface and finds that learning this way, by reading and doing, he is able to develop mastering music skills much better.
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SCENARIO
The Composer
Elvin is a senior in college and has spent the last few years at college teaching himself how to compose film music. He already has many short film credits under his belt, all done through FLStudios. This is an interface that he is already very familiar with and preferred. But after taking a recording engineering class he finds that since ProTools is an industry-standard, he should try learning how to use it a little better.
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His main goal is to compose music on the interface. Since he likes to work from his laptop, he wants to be able to just type on his keyboard and compose it within the interface. He always thought that ProTools looked too clunky and overwhelming. However, using the walk-through tutorial that teaches a user how to quickly and efficiently use the MIDI feature on ProTools, he begins to understand the functions more intuitively. He can now get familiar with the function with practice through the module and adapt to working on this interface.
SCENARIO #3
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Lara is in the middle of working on another song. She’s already gone through recording parts of the song, but now wants to create some new beats and write a string section for the bridge on the MIDI keyboard. However, she realizes that it’s very difficult to do these things on the interface, since she only has limited knowledge and believes that there are only two functions that can help her write music.
With the walk through tutorial, she goes through the feature that teaches her basic functions of Pro Tools and the most commonly used extensions. Since she has some experience with other DAWs that usually have a standard universal function that she finds confusing on Pro Tools, she likes the walk-through because it helps her get a general understanding and refreshes her memory of the application.
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In addition, since there's a lot of visual feedback and the pop-up bubbles appear after she has successfully performs the functions, she finds that using the application is easier to use and finds a certain flow to using it.
RESEARCH SUMMARY
Translating Symbolic Learning into Doing
From my initial literature review, I expected that there would be a clear difference between interacting with a digital music interface and an acoustic instrument. From the people I have spoken with and interviewed, it seems that there is a lack of desire to learn a digital interface because of the symbolic, memory-based learning that is required to become an expert. Granted, there are many websites where one can watch videos and learn on there own, but because the interface is so unfamiliar to anyone without experience, and because it is fundamentally a visually-based tool, there are fewer opportunities for one to just jump in and teach themselves how to use it. The functions cannot be self-taught; one cannot use other senses, such as one's ear or sense of touch to feel out how a certain feature in this interface works. Most of the learning done on a DAW relies on sight, even if when mixing and making music one should rely on one's ears, but the visual feedback from most plug-ins and the interface itself are definitely necessary in the learning process. Even when using a feature, such as a MIDI keyboard, there are complications along the way in the form of code and programming. The user is removed from the tool by the creator of the tool itself, and in order for the user to master the tool, the user has to perform actions within the program themselves. The way to do this is by walking through the program and learning by seeing and then doing. With a built-in feature/capability to do so, learning such a digital tool can be streamlined to be more intuitive, not disrupting a user's flow of learning with unnecessary functions that may not pertain to their goal at the moment.
PROTOTYPE FUNCTIONS
3 Functions
BASIC FUNCTIONS OVERVIEW
MIDI/COMPOSING
MIXING
Wireframe 1
This wireframe goes over the Basic Tools and how Popups would work in learning editing functions in Pro Tools.
Wireframe 2
The MIDI/Composing walkthrough is more of an exercise-based walkthrough, also with options to quit the exercise.
Wireframe 3
The Mixing walkthrough is a bit more complex since it has multiple options, but it will be created to be more simple and follow a linear step-by-step path.
WIREFRAME
First Prototype
This learning interface is built like a walk-through tutorial, modeled after exercises that have already been made in ProTools manuals. There would be two pathways: a learning pathway where you go through actual exercises from the book and a walk-through that you can pick and choose from, depending on what specifically the user does not know how to do.
HI-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE
Thanks for your interest in my research. Get in touch with any questions or comments regarding my work and publications. I’d love to hear from you.