The Elbow Piano : Sonification of Piano Playing Movements

The Elbow Piano distinguishes two types of piano touch: a touchwith movement in the elbow joint and a touch without. A playednote is first mapped to the left or right hand by visual tracking.Custom-built goniometers attached to the player's arms are usedto detect the type of touch. The two different types of touchesare sonified by different instrument sounds. This gives theplayer an increased awareness of his elbow movements, which isconsidered valuable for piano education. We have implementedthe system and evaluated it with a group of music students.