Enhancing learnability of melody based music through intuitive human computer interaction

Music learning demands significant amount of time and effort from the learner and the tutor. This paper describes the work done to improve the learnability of melody based music by decreasing the cognitive workload of the music learner through gesture based melody rendering and reduction of basic rendering errors by selectively eliminating notes which are not part of the chosen scale. This approach was tested using the custom built Raga keyboard interface, built to provide the required gesture based melody rendering control and a scale choosing option to enable self-assisted learning and rendering capabilities to the user. Carnatic music was chosen for testing the framework due to the presence of rich microtonal rendition patterns. This framework aims at increasing the learn-ability of melody based music by eliminating/minimizing the barriers in the Human Perceptual, Cognitive and Motor Subsystems, by providing natural gesture based melody rendering control and options and to choose the desired scale/rules for rendition.