The Cave of Sounds: An Interactive Installation Exploring How We Create Music Together

The Cave of Sounds is an interactive sound installation made up of new musical instruments. Exploring what it means to create instruments together within the context of NIME and the maker scene, each instrument was created by an individual but with the aim of forming a part of this new ensemble over ten months, with the final installation debuting at the Barbican in London in August 2013. In this paper, we describe how ideas of prehistoric collective music making inspired and guided this participatory musical work, both in terms of how it was created and the audience experience of musical collaboration we aimed to create in the final installation. Following a detailed description of the installation itself, we reflect on the successes, lessons and future challenges of encouraging creative musical collaboration among members of an audience.