Towards digital music performance for mobile devices based on magnetic interaction

Digital music performance require high degree of interaction using natural, intuitive input controllers that provide fast feedback on user´s action. One of the primary considerations of professional artists is a powerful and creative tool that minimizes the number of steps required for the speed-demanding processes. Most of the musical performance applications, which are designed for mobile devices, use touch-screen or accelerometer as interaction modalities. In this work, we present a novel interface for musical performance that is based on the magnetic field sensor embedded in recent mobile devices. The proposed method, at this point, promises a new independent ground for inputting momentary data during music composition and manipulation process. Giving the opportunity to freely, fully and quickly utilize the surrounding 3D space, it possesses the potential to bring a wide-spectrum of unique options for production and performance process of music.