Electromagnetic guitar: chord playing support system on guitar by electromagnets

Abstract

We introduce ElectroMagnetic Guitar (EMG), a new guitar interface that supports chord playing mainly for beginner guitar players. In the case of right handed players, they play the guitar with their left hand’s fingers on a fretboard and pick the strings with their right hand’s fingers, our guitar guides the player’s fingering of the left hand by magnetic force. To realize such a concept, we made an original fretboard with controllable electromagnets mounted and attached it to the normal classic guitar. EMG ‘draws’ player’s left hand fingers with magnetic material attached toward proper chord positions on the fretboard. As a result of an informal user study, our EMG prototype offered sufficient magnetic force to keep chord form, though not enough power to properly draw fingering.