Abstract
Virtuosic bowed string performance in many ways exemplifies the incredible potential of human physical performance and expression. Today, a great deal is known about the physics of the violin family and those factors responsible for its sound capabilities. However, there remains much to be discovered about the intricacies of how players control these instruments in order to achieve their characteristic range and nuance of sound. Today, technology offers the ability to study this player control under realistic, unimpeded playing conditions to lead to greater understanding of these performance skills. Presented here is a new methodology for investigation of bowed string performance that uses a playable hardware measurement system to capture the gestures of right hand violin bowing technique. This measurement system (which uses inertial, force, and electric field position sensors) was optimized to be small, lightweight, and portable and was installed on a carbon fiber violin bow and an electric violin to enable study of realistic, unencumbered violin performances. The application of this measurement system to the study of standard bowing techniques, including détaché, martelé, and spiccato, and to the study of individual players themselves, is discussed.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Askenfelt, A.: Measurement of the bowing parameters in violin playing. STL-QPSR 29(1), 1–30 (1988)
Auer, L.: Violin Playing as I Teach It, reprint edn. Dover Publications, New York (1980)
Berman, J., Jackson, B.G., Sarch, K.: Dictionary of Bowing and Pizzicato Terms, 4th edn. Tichenor Publishing, Bloomington (1999)
Brown, R.G., Hwang, P.Y.C.: Introduction to Random Signals and Applied Kalman Filtering, 3rd edn. John Wiley & Sons, New York (1997)
CodaBow: Conservatory Violin Bow, http://www.codabow.com/
Cremer, L.: The Physics of the Violin. MIT Press, Cambridge (1984)
Demoucron, M.: On the control of virtual violins. Ph.D. thesis, KTH (2008)
Demoucron, M., Askenfelt, A., Caussé, R.: Measuring bow force in bowed string performance: Theory and implementation of a bow force sensor. Acta Acustica United with Acustica 95(4), 718–732 (2009)
Fjellman-Wiklund, A., Grip, H., Karlsson, J.S., Sundelin, G.: EMG trapezius muscle activity pat-tern in string players: Part I—is there variability in the playing technique? International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 33, 347–356 (2004)
Flesch, C.: The Art of Violin Playing: Book One, reprint edn. Carl Fischer. Foreword by Anne-Sophie Mutter, New York (2000)
Fletcher, N.H.: The nonlinear physics of musical instruments. Rep. Prog. Phys. 62, 723–764 (1999)
Gigante, C.: Manual of Orchestral Bowing. Tichenor Publishing, Bloomington (1986)
Green, E.A.H.: Orchestral Bowings and Routines. American String Teachers Association, Reston (1990)
Guettler, K.: The bowed string: On the development of helmholtz motion and on the creation of anomalous low frequencies. Ph.D. thesis, Royal Institute of Technology - Speech, Music and Hearing (2002)
M-Audio: Fast Track USB, http://www.m-audio.com/
Micro-Measurements, V.: http://www.vishay.com/company/brands/micromeasurements/
Nabney, I.T.: NETLAB: Algorithms for Pattern Recognition. In: Advances in Pattern Recognition. Springer, Great Britain (2002) NETLAB toolbox, http://www.ncrg.aston.ac.uk/netlab/index.php
Ng, K., Larkin, O., Koerselman, T., Ong, B.: i-Maestro Gesture and Posture Support: 3D Motion Data Visualisation for Music Learning And Playing. In: Bowen, J.P., Keene, S., MacDonald, L. (eds.) Proceedings of EVA 2007 London International Conference, August 27-31. London College of Communication, p. 20.1–20.8. University of the Arts London, UK (2007)
Ng, K., Larin, O., Koerselman, T., Ong, B., Schwarz, D., Bevilacqua, F.: The 3D Augmented Mirror: Motion Analysis for String Practice Training. In: Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference, ICMC 2007 – Immersed Music, Vol. II, Copen-hagen, Denmark, August 27–31, pp. 53–56 (2007)
Ng, K., Weyde, T., Larkin, O., Neubarth, K., Koerselman, T., Ong, B.: 3D Augmented Mirror: A Multi-modal Interface for String Instrument Learning and Teaching with Gesture Support. In: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces, Nagoya, Japan, pp. 339–345. ACM SIGCHI (2007) ISBN: 978-1-59593-817-6
Ng, K.: Interactive Multimedia for Technology-enhanced Learning with Multimodal Feedback. In: Solis, J., Ng, K. (eds.) Musical Robots and Interactive Multimodal Systems, Tracts in Advanced Robotics, vol. 74, Springer, Heidelberg (2011)
Paradiso, J., Gershenfeld, N.: Musical applications of electric field sensing. Computer Music Journal 21(3), 69–89 (1997)
Puckette, M.: Pure Data (Pd), http://www.crca.ucsd.edu/msp/software.html
Rasamimanana, N.: Gesture Analysis of Bow Strokes Using an Augmented Violin, M.S. thesis, Université Piere et Marie Curie (2004)
Rasamimanana, N., Kaiser, F., Bevilacqua, F.: Perspectives on gesture-sound relationships in-formed from acoustic instrument studies. Organized Sound 14, 208–216 (2009)
Schelleng, J.C.: The Bowed string and the player. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 53, 26–41 (1973)
Schoonderwaldt, E., Rasamimanana, N., Bevilacqua, F.: Combining accelerometer and video camera: Reconstruction of bow velocity profiles. In: Proceedings of the 2006 International Con-ference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2006), Paris (2006)
Schoonderwaldt, E.: Mechanics and acoustics of violin bowing: Freedom, constraints and control in performance. Ph.D. thesis, KTH (2009)
Schumacher, R.T., Woodhouse, J.: The transient behaviour of models of bowed-string motion. Chaos 5(3), 509–523 (1995)
Shan, G., Visentin, P.: A Quantitative Three-dimensional Analysis of Arm Kinematics in Violin Performance. Medical Problems of Performing Artists, 3–10 (March 2003)
Shan, G., Visentin, P., Schultz, A.: Multidimensional Signal Analysis as a Means of Better Un-derstanding Factors Associated with Repetitive Use in Violin Performance. Medical Problems of Performing Artists, 129–139 (September 2004)
Strang, G.: LinearAlgebra and Its Applications, 4th edn. Brooks Cole, Stanford (2005)
Turner-Stokes, L., Reid, K.: Three-dimensional motion analysis of upper limb movement in the bowing arm of string-playing musicians. Clinical Biomechanics 14, 426–433 (1999)
Winold, H., Thelen, E., Ulrich, B.D.: Coordination and Control in the Bow Arm Movements of Highly Skilled Cellists. Ecological Psychology 6(1), 1–31 (1994)
Woodhouse, J.: Stringed instruments: Bowed. In: Crocker, M.J. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Acoustics. Wiley-Interscience, pp. 1619–1626. Wiley, Cambridge (1997)
Woodhouse, J.: Bowed String Simulation Using a Thermal Friction Model. Acta Acustica United with Acustica 89, 355–368 (2003)
Woodhouse, J., Galluzzo, P.M.: The Bowed String As We Know It Today. Acta Acustica United with Acustica 90, 579–589 (2004)
Yagisan, N., Karabork, H., Goktepe, A., Karalezli, N.: Evaluation of Three-Dimensional Motion Analysis of the Upper Right Limb Movements in the Bowing Arm of Violinists Through a Digi-tal Photogrammetric Method. Medical Problems of Performing Artists, 181–184 (December 2009)
Yamaha: SV-200 Silent Violin, http://www.global.yamaha.com/index.html
Young, D.: New frontiers of expression through real-time dynamics measurement of violin bows. Master’s thesis, M.I.T (2001)
Young, D.: The Hyperbow controller: Real-time dynamics measurement of violin performance. In: Proceedings of the 2002 Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2002), Montreal (2002)
Young, D.: A methodology for investigation of bowed string performance through measurement of violin bowing technique. Ph.D. thesis, M.I.T (2007)
Young, D., Deshmane, A.: Bowstroke Database: A Web-Accessible Archive of Violin Bowing Data. In: Proceedings of the 2007 Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2007), New York (2007)
Young, D., Serafin, S.: Investigating the performance of a violin physical model: Recent real player studies. In: Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference, Copenhagen (2007)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Young, D.S. (2011). Capturing Bowing Gesture: Interpreting Individual Technique. In: Solis, J., Ng, K. (eds) Musical Robots and Interactive Multimodal Systems. Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics, vol 74. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22291-7_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22291-7_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-22290-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-22291-7
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)