Vuzik: the effect of large gesture interaction on children's creative musical expression.

Bringing the body more fully into interaction has attracted attention as research now looks to combines body, mind, cognition and emotion when people interact with a digital environment. This paper describes a user study comparing Vuzik -- an application where the user manipulates, arranges, and composes music with painting interaction akin to that used when standing at an easel, to a traditional, GUI based musical interface. Vuzik aims to promote creative musical experiences in children by allowing the child's actions and movements as he/she paints on a large display resembling a canvas using a palette and brush or finger to control musical parameters interactively. In a study conducted with fourteen elementary school children, we found that when compared to a more WIMP-based traditional tool, Vuzik promoted larger scale gestures, ease of learning, and the formation of a broader overall understanding of their musical creation.