Participatory Design Workshop to Create a Virtual Reality Musical Instrument Based on Tumbuk Kalang

• Published in: Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
• Main Author: Baharin H.; Norowi N.; Saffian K.A.; Sim Y.E.
• Format: Conference paper
• Language: English
• Published: Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH 2024
• Online Access: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85176013755&doi=10.1007%2f978-981-99-7339-2_13&partnerID=40&md5=178a5c4c4dcda6c7dc89a771bef6e876

This paper describes a participatory design workshop to design a virtual reality musical instrument based on Tumbuk Kalang. Originating as a performance for rice harvesting festivals, Tumbuk Kalang as a traditional musical instrument consists of a mortar and pestles. Several players, each holding a pestle will coordinate their movements to pound on the same mortar to create rhythmic sounds whilst singing. These days, Tumbuk Kalang is no longer associated with rice harvest but has been innovated in cultural performances that include songs, dances, and other musical instruments. As machines take over rice production, pestles and mortars are out of use and the tradition of Tumbuk Kalang may be lost. Thus, this research proposes to create a Virtual Reality (VR) Tumbuk Kalang so that it can be preserved and played by future musicians. However, instead of recreating Tumbuk Kalang in VR, we suggest that innovation should be introduced in the design of the new VR Tumbuk Kalang. Hence, we have conducted a participatory design workshop with 12 musicians to design the new VR Tumbuk Kalang. The findings from the workshop produces six new designs of VR musical instruments based on Tumbuk Kalang. The contributions of this paper include the new designs of VR Tumbuk Kalang and the participatory design method used which may be replicated by other researchers who are aiming to preserve traditional musical instruments in the form of VR. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024.