High technologies in arts
Elena Vnorovscaia / Chişinău / Moldova.ORG / -- A group of Japanese scientists have invented an electronic device that stimulates the muscles on the forearm to move the fingers in time with ones favourite guitar solo. The invention, called PosessedHand, can be programmed to move your fingers in time with the tunes without your brain needing to think about it.
Using a belt worn around the forearm, the machine contains 28 electrodes, which flex each of the joints in your fingers and thumb as well as producing two wrist movements.
In other words players wear plectrums on three fingers to pluck the instrument’s strings, while the music score indicates which fingers should be moved. The scientists programmed PossessedHand to stimulate the wearer’s hand to play a tune on the instrument.
As its developers say, due to this innovative device there is no need to teach complex combinations. Now guitarists do not need to learn chords. The PosessedHand can be programmed to any song - from the simplest to the works of art.
The guitarist who wants to perform a composition, the notes of which he had never seen, just needs to use this special wristband with 28 electrodes
“Feelings are non-transferable! It feels like someone controls my hand!”, said one of the participants in the experiment.
Emi Tamaki and a team at the University of Tokyo, using the Koto, a Japanese stringed instrument, undertook the development of the device.
“The user’s fingers are controlled without the user’s mind,” said Tamaki.
But Simon Holland, director of music computing the Open University was skeptical of the device, saying there is a big difference between learning to play one song using this method and being a competent musician.
“You might learn a fingering technique and be able to reproduce that, without being able to perform simple variants,” he noticed.
Anyway while the device could be used for wannabe musicians, it is also hoped that the technology may be able to help rehabilitate people who have suffered strokes.
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