A Function-Oriented Interface for Music Education and Musical Expressions: "the Sound Wheel"

In this paper, a function-oriented musical interface, named the sound wheel , is presented. This interface is designed to manipulate musical functions like pitch class sets, tonal centers and scale degrees, rather than the musical surface , i.e. the individual notes with concrete note heights. The sound wheel has an interface summarizing harmony theory, and the playing actions have explicit correspondence with musical functions. Easy usability is realized by semiautomatizing the conversion process from musical functions into the musical surface. Thus, the player can use this interface with concentration on the harmonic structure, without having his attention caught by manipulating the musical surface. Subjective evaluation indicated the e ectiveness of this interface as a tool helpful for understanding the music theory. Because of such features, this interface can be used for education and interactive training of tonal music theory.