A Principled Approach to Developing New Languages for Live Coding

This paper introduces Improcess, a novel cross-disciplinary collaborative project focussed on the design and development of tools to structure the communication between performer and musical process. We describe a 3-tiered architecture centering around the notion of a Common Music Runtime, a shared platform on top of which inter-operating client interfaces may be combined to form new musical instruments. This approach allows hardware devices such as the monome to act as an extended hardware interface with the same power to initiate and control musical processes as a bespoke programming language. Finally, we reflect on the structure of the collaborative project itself, which offers an opportunity to discuss general research strategy for conducting highly sophisticated technical research within a performing arts environment such as the development of a personal regime of preparation for performance.