Metronome Music Time Capsule: rematerialising music consumption and exchange

Abstract

The dematerialisation of music consumption is a well evidenced and widely accepted trend. Though much literature has been produced discussing the economic and legal implications of this significant shift for the music industry, its impact on listening practices and consequent considerations for interface design are less well researched. This paper outlines the development of a prototype system that explores, symbolically, the interplay between contemporary dematerialised modes of music consumption with listening traditions of the recent past. A pre-internet age metronome was re-purposed as a tangible interface for a custom music player containing 25 songs, drawn from the period 1940 to 2012. Together, the controller and software reflect through sound, graphics and physicality the progress of Western commercial music, technology and society over this time.