TuneTracker: Tensions in the surveillance of traditional music

Norman Makoto Su, Bryan Duggan

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

We describe the design and deployment of the first system ever to dynamically track and publish records of folk music playing. TuneTracker is a software system that has been, at time of writing, deployed at a pub in Dublin, Ireland for five months. It captures, stores, and posts the names of tunes played in Irish traditional music sessions on a public website. This paper makes two contributions: (1) drawing from a two year ethnographic study of trad musicians, it details the design and development of a system to track and publish traditional musicians' practices while respecting the ethos of tradition, and (2) it presents a discussion of professional musicians' reactions to having their music practices surveilled. This latter fieldwork revealed divergent viewpoints on the effect that TuneTracker would have on local sessions and the process of tradition.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationDIS 2014 - Proceedings of the 2014 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Designing Interactive Systems
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Pages845-854
Number of pages10
ISBN (Print)9781450329026
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014
Event2014 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, DIS 2014 - Vancouver, BC, Canada
Duration: 21 Jun 201425 Jun 2014

Publication series

NameProceedings of the Conference on Designing Interactive Systems: Processes, Practices, Methods, and Techniques, DIS

Conference

Conference2014 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, DIS 2014
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityVancouver, BC
Period21/06/1425/06/14

Keywords

  • Ethics
  • Ethnomusicology
  • Folk music
  • Irish traditional music
  • Surveillance
  • Ubiquitous computing

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