A Mechatronic System for the Visualisation and Analysis of Orchestral Conducting

TL;DR

The paper tackles the lack of feedback in solo conducting practice by introducing a portable mechatronic system that fuses Leap Motion palm tracking with an IMU-mounted baton to compute the baton-tip pose via forward kinematics. It demonstrates that extraneous body movements systematically distort the conducting trajectory and provides quantitative metrics through average trajectory analysis and rigid registration, with $X_a = P + X_r$ and $X = A\\B$ as representative formulations. The authors show that extraneous movements, especially wrist movements, degrade trajectory clarity and that the system can identify unknown extraneous movements by matching a random bar to established averages. This work offers a practical, real-time visualisation and analysis tool with clear pedagogical implications for improving conducting technique and self-guided practice.

Abstract

This paper quantitatively analysed orchestral conducting patterns, and detected variations as a result of extraneous body movement during conducting, in the first experiment of its kind. A novel live conducting system featuring data capture, processing, and analysis was developed. Reliable data of an expert conductor's movements was collected, processed, and used to calculate average trajectories for different conducting techniques with various extraneous body movements; variations between extraneous body movement techniques and controlled technique were definitively determined in a novel quantitative analysis. A portable and affordable mechatronic system was created to capture and process live baton tip data, and was found to be accurate through calibration against a reliable reference. Experimental conducting field data was captured through the mechatronic system, and analysed against previously calculated average trajectories; the extraneous movement used during the field data capture was successfully identified by the system.

Figures (14)

• Figure 1: An example of a conductor, standing in front of an orchestra with a baton (a), and a conducting baton (b) (Sources: wikiConductor, wikiBaton )
• Figure 2: Examples of conventional baton movements and paths. Example paths for 2/4 time (2 beats in a bar), 3/4 time (3 beats in a bar), and 4/4 time (4 beats in a bar).
• Figure 3: LeapMotion and IMU axes visualised. LeapMotion device coordinates visualised; source: LeapMotion developer documentationcoordinateSystemsLeapMotionCSdkV32BetaDocumentation. IMU axes visualisedmpu925XObsolescenceIssue59 .
• Figure 4: Baton tip pose calculated from IMU rotation. Ignoring translation, forward kinematics calculations to get the baton tip pose from the orientation of the IMU.
• Figure 5: E. Prof. McWilliams conducting in OptiTrack rig.