Haptic Drum Kit

Comments

Franck Norman

Drew Logsdon

Summary

The authors sought to create a tool to help users develop multi-limb coordination. They also mentioned developing skills in recognizing, identifying, memorizing, retaining, analyzing, reproducing, and composing polyphonic rhythms. Their work builds on the theories of Dalcroze, a music educator, the entrainment theory of human rhythm perception and production, and research in embodied cognition, especially sensory motor contingency theory.

They created a Haptic Drum Kit, which contains a set of four vibrotactiles and elastic velcro bands, an Arduino electronic circuit board with a pouch belt, a midi drm kit, a computer running Max/Msp and software for audio and midi recording a playback, the Haptic Drum Kit program, and a stereo audio system for playback. They used a 12000 rpm (typo?) rotary-motor type vibrotactile device for the haptic signal.

Their user study consisted of 5 users, 4 novices and 1 experienced user. There was 20 reference rhythms from 4 broad categories

• metric rhythms, 8 and 16 beat
• figural rhythms, involving syncopation, based on the Cuban clave
• simple regular beats rendered figural by the way events are distributed across limbs, thus subtly varying tone color
• polyrhythms

The results from the experiment showed that users typically had a positive experience wearing the device. They all preferred haptic with the audio feedback. They do complain that the haptic feedback was soft and quiet, feedback was blurry for fast rhythms, and all the pulses were the same regardless of meaning.

Commentary

I think this would be a fun device to try. I am pretty sure that I would have trouble with this because my reflexes tend to be slow, but after a while, I can learn to coordinate myself better, which is the point of the device.

---------------------------------------------------

Simon Holland, Anders J. Bouwer, Mathew Dalgleish, and Topi M. Hurtig. Feeling the Beat Where it Counts: Fostering Multi-Limb Rhythm Skills with the Haptic Drum Kit. TEI 2010.