AscoGraph: A User Interface for Sequencing and Score Following for Interactive Music

Composing interactive music using score following, requires tight coordination and several round trips between many tools to write the score to follow, and to author the electronic actions, and assess their synchronisation. In addition, at performance time, the score-following must be monitored to ensure proper execution. Unifying composition and performance phases provides composers and electronic music designers a global approach with the best of both worlds. The AscoGraph interface is an incarnation of the need for unifying authorship and performance for Antescofo’s score following and reactive engines. AscoGraph provides high precision tools for textual and graphical authorship of complex dynamic interactive music pieces with intuitive and sustainable design. This article presents the design, challenges and integration of AscoGraph for edition and representation of mixed music scores using Antescofo by affording complex hierarchical constructions such as nested blocks and polyphony in electronic actions while maintaining readability and ease of authorship.