Applied and Proposed Installations with Silent Disco Headphones for Multi-Elemental Creative Expression

Breaking musical and creative expression into elements, layers, and formulas, we explore how live listeners create unique sonic experiences from a palette of these elements and their interactions. Bringing us to present-day creative applications, a social and historical overview of silent disco is presented. The advantages of this active listening interface are outlined by the author’s expressions requiring discrete elements, such as binaural beats, 3D audio effects, and multiple live music acts in the same space. Events and prototypes as well as hardware and software proposals for live multi-listener manipulation of multielemental sound and music are presented. Examples in audio production, sound healing, music composition, tempo phasing, and spatial audio illustrate the applications.