Synchronizing Music and Movement with BeatLED: an Interactive Musical Social Game

Abstract

To study the rhythmical and social synchronization, also known as entrainment, that occurs when people move to music in a social context, novel applications that motivate and measure this behaviour are needed. In this paper, we describe the development of such an application, BeatLED, a social game that uses music, movement and luminescent textile. We analyse the requirements of such a musical social game, as well as the possible application fields, such as musicology research, team-building and health care. We developed novel game dynamics and integrated them into a proof-of-concept implementation, which was evaluated positively by 84% of the test users.

Acknowledgements

The research activities in this paper were co-funded by Ghent University, the Interdisciplinary Institute for Broadband Technology (IBBT, a research institute founded by the Flemish Government), the Institute for Promotion of Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders (IWT), the FWO-Flanders, the Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC), and the European Union. We would also like to extend special thanks to all participants in this project from IPEM, MMLab and CMST, and finally to the Belgian Industrial Research & Development (BiR&D) committee, for their financial support.

Notes

¹ http://www.analog.com

² http://opensoundcontrol.org/

³ http://code.google.com/p/wiiusej/

⁴ http://www.ipem.ugent.be/node/315/