Non-contact measurement of bow force and friction force in bowed string instruments using a camera

Ryodai Izaki, Naoto Wakatsuki, Koichi Mizutani and Keiichi Zempo

University of Tsukuba

Saturday, September 14, 2019 from 14:00 to 14:01

in Summer Theater

Abstract :
Visualizing the mechanical parameters given by the player to the instrument may help to improve the performance technique. Thus, the methods to measure parameters that have less influence on musical performance are required. In this research, we proposed a non-contact measurement method of bow force and friction force using an ordinary camera (not high speed). By using an ordinary camera instead of a high-speed camera, we can obtain the average position of the strings from the blurred image. The process consists of the following 3 steps: (1) Taking the video of illuminated strings with a camera. (2) The position of the strings is calculated from the center of gravity illuminated part. (3) String displacement from a neutral position is converted into bow force and friction force using the relation between position and force in a string. In addition, this method is possible to visualize the bow force and frictional force with real-time, so a player can check it there. We confirmed the validity of the proposed method by a verification experiment.

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