Models of the player’s interactions with strings

Abstract

In the context of physically inspired models for the synthesis, the development of accurate models for the interaction of the player with the instrument plays a fundamental role. Depending on the musical instrument, the palette of possible interactions is generally very broad and includes the coupling of body parts, mechanical objects, and/or devices with various components of the instrument. In this work, we focus on models of the interaction of the player with strings, which include elastoplastic models of the fingers, dynamic models of the bow, the plectrum and the friction of objects such as bottle necks. We consider interactions both at the stimulation side (e.g., plucking or bowing) and at the fingerboard side, where collisions and/or imperfect pressures introduce nonlinear effects. Other possible interactions in less conventional play modes such as those based on rotating motors and electromagnetic stimulation are taken into account in this work. The proposed models do not depend on the specific implementation of the physical model in, e.g., Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD)-based or waveguide-based schemes. While the former class of implementations may produce more accurate results, the latter allows for simplifications and lower computational costs provided that stability can be guaranteed.