Hand motion capture system in piano playing

Abstract

It is important to measure the dexterous finger movements for piano education. But there are some problems to measure accurately of finger movements with angular position due to the complex finger bones construction. In this research, the complex and soft hand movements of a professional pianist were observed using different melodious music as an example, though it can measure any types of finger movements using magnetic motion capture (MoCap) system. The system can measure the complex finger movements with six degrees of freedom (6DOF). From the measured data, we calculated the finger height in space while playing the piano. We have investigated the hand/fingers status during playing the piano. The knowledge of finger movements of an expert pianist is useful for the skill learning. The data and knowledge of finger movements can be applicable in various fields where dexterous movements are essentials such as piano, computer typing, writing, different games etc.