Kiri Miller

This research investigates new modes of musical experience made possible by interactive digital media. Streaming audio/video technologies and social networking websites have allowed people to go far beyond trading mp3 files online; today they take music lessons through YouTube, participate in virtual collaborations, and engage with popular music in new ways by playing games like Guitar Hero. How are these new forms of “musicking” changing practitioners’ concepts of musicality, creativity, and embodied performance? This project builds on ethnographic research to present new theories of musical performance at the intersection of the “virtual” and the “real,” enhancing our understanding of the changing nature of amateur musicianship in a technologically mediated world.