Boyd, JeffreyEagle, DavidPopa, Iulius2017-12-152017-12-1520172017http://hdl.handle.net/11023/4270Collaborative musical interfaces for novices allow people with limited to no musical education access to a “walk-up and play” group musical experience. However, research shows that the ease-of-use of an interface tends to be inversely proportional with its creative affordances. My research aims at increasing the level of creative controls in interfaces for novices without compromising the “walk-up and play” characteristic or negatively affecting the perceived quality of the musical output. This thesis proposes a new design paradigm – a “game of music” and presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of MUSE – a real time, collaborative musical interface for novices. Participants in user studies of MUSE found learning and using the interface easy, described the music as pleasant, and reported having creative control over the music output. Further research could explore this new paradigm and its potential to maximize creative affordances when designing new collaborative musical interactions for novices.engUniversity of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.MusicEducation--MusicComputer Sciencemusicgamecollaborativenovicessandboxmaster thesis10.11575/PRISM/28737