Brent Gillespie: Mechanics of the relationship between musician and musical instrument

ABSTRACT

Any relationship has its ups and downs, including the relationship between a musician and their instrument. A good portion of these relationship mechanics is likely governed by the actual mechanics of either party: the mechanical impedance of the instrument and the mechanical impedance of the human body. We have applied a variety of system identification techniques to characterize the mechanical impedance of the piano action and lately the impedance of human fingers and hands as well. By fitting models of human biomechanics and control to the performance of simple tasks and checking against task variations, we seek to validate the simplest competent model of human feedforward control.  We have also tested the role of haptic cues in sequence learning and found that compared to visual cues, haptic cues play a greater role in motor memory than perceptual memory.  If we can determine what underlies a healthy relationship between musician and musical instrument, perhaps we can inform the design—in particular the design of the feel—of digital musical instruments. 


ABOUT BRENT GILLESPIE

Brent Gillespie received the B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Davis, in 1986, a Masters in piano performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 1989, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from Stanford University in 1992 and 1996.  At Stanford he was associated with the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics. He has been with the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan since 1999.  His research interests include haptic interface and teleoperator control, human motor control, prosthetics, rehabilitation robotics, and human-musical instrument interaction.