The article describes an experiment where accordionists, guitarists and pianists perform simple musical tasks in a musical interface that simulates an accordion. The results indicate that accordionists produce many more errors than other subjects for the same task, performed on the tablet and with buttons arranged in different positions. This difficulty for accordion players to adapt to an interface that is similar to the accordion suggests that modifications to the musician's original musical instrument produce more disturbances for musicians in interfaces simulating their own instrument than the task of trying to play an interface of an instrument you don't know.

Adapting the accordion to the interface on a tablet, as proposed in the study.

Description of study tasks

This check seems counterintuitive, but the results support the hypothesis of “extended mind” (CLARK; CHALMERS, 1998). In this proposal, objects that we use in our activities are conceived as part of our “mind” and any modification to these objects can destroy our behavioral ability as if a part of the brain were being altered..

In the figure below we notice that in the third task (play a scale), where fingerings are unknown to all subjects (including the accordionists), accordionists have much more difficulty performing the task, which is reflected in the amount of errors illustrated below.

Number of errors per group of subjects and tasks.

The study points to the impact of the materiality of interfaces and objects on a form of cultural production such as music, considered within the notion of equity “immaterial”. The study also launches elements that support important hypotheses about the measurement between music and body.

References:

CLARK, Andy; CHALMERS, David. The extended mind. Analysis, [S. l.], p. 7–19, 1998. Available in: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3328150. Access on: 5 jul. 2015.