An abstract control space for communication of sensory expressive intentions in music performance

Expressiveness is not an extravagance: instead, expressiveness plays a critical role in rational decision-making, in perception, in human interaction, in human emotions and in human intelligence. These facts, combined with the development of new informatics systems able to recognize and understand different kinds of signals, open new areas for research. A new model is suggested for computer understanding of sensory expressive intentions of a human performer and both theoretical and practical applications are described for human-computer interaction, perceptual information retrieval, creative arts and entertainment. Recent studies demonstrated that by opportunely modifying systematic deviations introduced by the musician it is possible to convey different sensitive contents, such as expressive intentions and/or emotions. We present an space, that can be used as a user interface. It represents, at an abstract level, the expressive content and the interaction between the performer and an expressive synthesizer.