RTSMCS based Air Guitar PLAYING GUITAR WITHOUT A GUITAR AND WITHOUT - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

RTSMCS based “Air Guitar” PLAYING GUITAR WITHOUT A GUITAR AND WITHOUT KNOW HOW TO PLAY A GUITAR.

What is the “Air Guitar”? The RTSMCS based “Air Guitar” is an interactive musical entertainment system, that gives the user an experience similar to that of playing guitar, but doesn’t require any real guitar playing skills. It does so by taking on loose principles of guitar playing technique and removing the need for string fingering, fine motor skills and musical knowledge. Similarly to the RTSMCS, the system uses pre- written material to generate its music. In the case of the “Air Guitar”, a pre-selected ordered set of chords (or musical segments) is uploaded to the system before use. As opposed to the RTSMCS, the “Air Guitar” only uses the predefined chords (or musical segments) as they are, to produce music. Because of this, building a carefully constructed set of chords or segments, can guarantee that anything that the user plays will sound harmonious. Also, similarly to the RTSMCS, the system utilizes hands position / motion data to control musical parameters. The system tracks the user’s left hand position relative to some reference markers to determine what sound will be played when the system detected a fast downward movement of the right hand (a “strum” event). The reference markers can be attached to anything, though sticking them to a base of a stick-like object is advised to help the user orient them selves. The closer the left hand is to the reference markers, the further along the location of selected the chord / segment will be in the ordered set. This chord / segment will be played when a “strum” event happens. The order of the set can be arranged from low to high chords / notes to get a more guitar playing-like experience.

Intent of the project The system was developed, on top of the RTSMCS framework, for the University of Haifa’s “Night of Scientists 2016” event. The objective was to display the abilities of the RTSMCS to a wide range of audiences by giving them the chance to actually use it in a meaningful way. Due to its simplistic nature the system is suitable even for young kids, which made up a prominent part of the event’s audience. The kids at the “Night of Scientists” event showed great interest in playing on the system.

The “Air Guitar” as used in the “Night of Scientists 2016” event The ordered set I used at the “Night of Scientists 2016” event was a set of chords in the key of C major (except B dim, replaced by Bm) imitating the chords that can be played in the key using a “barre” technique, whose root notes are played on the low E string on the guitar. I placed the reference markers on the base of a broom, and marked the locations of the position that trigger each chord from the ordered set.

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