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Scientists Create Air Guitar T-shirt
onco_p53 writes "Australian scientists have invented a T-shirt that allows air guitarists to play actual music as they strum the air. The shirt has sensors in each elbow and sleeves to detect and interpret the air guitarist's arm movements — one arm chooses chords and the other strums imaginary strings. The gestures are then connected wirelessly to guitar audio samples to generate the music. Check out the video!"
Sounds more like a job for engineers. Perhaps they just meant Boffins in general?
I'll probably be modded as flamebait but I don't think that shirt was actually controlling that sound. I think this video was intended to be a viral internet video to garner venture capital for developing that kind of technology.
I assume this is intended to only play power chords and on top of that there is no way the machine can determine if you intend the third to be major or minor in the chord. Which is interesting because in the video, the chord changes from major to minor with no change in the performer. That's fine, let's then assume that you can select a key and it will adhere to the chords in that key.
At several points in the video, he strums by flicking his wrist instead of moving his whole arm. That's pretty standard for guitarists but doesn't explain how the shirt (with sensor fibres in the elbow) would recognize the motion. Also, near the end, the guitar that I assume he is playing strums multiple times without him doing anything.
I read the article and, if it has been developed, this short short video did not do a good job of showing it off or selling me on it actually working. I'd rather see an average guy just messing around with it with no back track. I don't care if it's not perfect, it's just that I could make that video with crappy acid trip effects in my basement and my friend on guitar watching me move my arms.
My work here is dung.
Aren't there more important things 'scientists' could be working on?
It needs to be made out of Spandex to truly make it rock.
Task Mangler
Bill and Ted's vision of the future was unrealistic and yet here we have another step towards it.
"To face death, that's nothing much. But to feel really stupid when you die, well, that would be insufferable."
So then if I play a real guitar while wearing this shirt will I get some awesome dischordant sounds? Also isn't the nice thing about air guitar that it doesn't annoy the crap out of your family this will be worse than a real one.
What if it shrinks in the laundry -- would it require retuning? How then do you deal with armpit stains? Honestly, I don't see how these guys will get venture funding without a good answer to these basic questions.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
Why do rock stars always say "Thag you" instead of "Thank you"?
bottom line, it sucks. He doesn't move his left arm at all, yet the chords change.... and they change the same every time... seem to have little to do with his actions...
I don't mean the guitar shirt sucks - I'm sure it's impressive, he's just playing lame air guitar!
Maybe if they put that shirt on a real artist we'd have different results.
...with a 1-finger GUI. Mimes are supposed to be silent, dammit.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
This technology already exists. It's called a 'guitar', it's a wooden ornament you suspend from your neck. Sort of a really big necktie.
"NO STAIRWAY"
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Impress your air girlfriend!...
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
just jumped the shark. It's all down hill from here.
How about inventing a pair of jeans that reads Nietzsche? or maybe a hat that throws insults and racial jokes at people? perhaps the scientists can help invent shoes that know where you're going? that would be nice...
Locksmith
if it was true it would be cool as hell, but man that was fake
Nothing to see here, please move on
You still need to know how to perform the correct movements in order to create something that sounds close to the original song. The whole purpose of air guitar is that you don't need to know anything about playing guitar and any mistakes you make aren't usually apparent.
just buy a damn Strat and a Marshall, and learn the A, G and D chords?
You wanna be guitar heroes, and you don't even wanna put the work in on it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBiJ-K0IpDA
Now I can jerk off and make cool guitar riffs at the same time.
Guitar Hero 3.0!
Freebird every day. ALL DAY.
The guys at the labor office are gonna rock it with me! Tallboys and freebird playing tshirts. Outstanding!
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.
Because air guitar == masturbation.
I had heard something like this before... just found it. Here's a group that has a virtual air guitar that works by wearing gloves. They limit you to 4 chords so you can't play anything "wrong." There is also a separate solo mode.
If it was true that thing takes all the fun of "air-guitaring" away. Air guitar if for people that don't have a clue how to play but they think they're Van Halen and yes it's for me too, so If I had one of this shirts I will actually have to "learn" how to play... screw that, I am already very proficient at my air guitar.
If this is real, someone get this guy a job at Harmonix.
STATION!
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Combine this with the shirt that has the equalizer bars on it, so you can show people you are rocking out. Personally, after seeing the pics / videos of both shirts, I believe the equalizer shirt exists. The air guitar shirt I see too many erros in the video. Playing notes that an elbow sensor couldn't pick up, and playing notes on its own to name 2.
Artist can do this sort of thing also. I went to an art show this weekend ans saw a xylophone controlled by a camera. It played when people walked in front of it. (picture video). I think that this sort of thing is pretty interesting and I am looking forward to the next things that are thought up. I also tend to believe that the most interesting things are thought up by individuals. Large corporation do ok making things but individuals are, maybe, a little freer to take ideas to an extreme and not worry about appealing to millions to recoup an investment.
Does it go to 11? Ours go to 11.
Isn't the point of Air Guitar that someone who can't play guitar mimics someone who can?
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
What they need to do is add exceptionally precise Ir/motion sensors to the shirt, so it can see exactly where your arms *and* fingers are, and play appropriately. Don't forget the small backpack-sized computing device to interpret all of that on the fly fast enough to keep up. ;) Hey, one can dream.
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I assume this is intended to only play power chords and on top of that there is no way the machine can determine if you intend the third to be major or minor in the chord. Which is interesting because in the video, the chord changes from major to minor with no change in the performer.
The basic chords for any major scale are always the same:
I, IIm, IIIm, IV, V, VIm, VIIo.
The vast majority of pop/rock is written in D or G:
D, Em, F#m, G, A, Bm, C#o.
G, Am, Bm, C, D, Em, F#o.
All the system has to do is know what key you're in and it can modify each chord to major or minor based on its relationshop to the root.
Of course that takes a degree of letting the system know what key you're in. Even easier is simply assuming the majority of music is in D or G and so G and D will always be major, E and B will always be minor A can easily be fudged with a power chord (dropping the third that would resolve it either way) and the same can just about be done with C and F although less well given their augmented forms. Take the assumption to a single key and you don't even need to fudge with power chords - you know exactly what every chord's relationship is, you're just stuck in one key (put on the red T shirt for D, the green T shirt for G and the blue T shirt for Dm, the saddest of all the keys (OK, so they should all be black for proper air guitarists but you get the point)).
Sure, this doesn't accomodate all of the modifications like add9s, aug2s, etc. but it is just air guitar afterall. The whole point of air guitar is that if you were really good enough to understand and control the complex interactions of an instrument you wouldn't be pretending for friends, you'd be doing it.
Everyone does it, but no one should do it in public...
and let Jack Black do the commercials
Mod parent up! It's the first comment to have actually looked into it as opposed to just "debunking".
:)
A goal is a dream with a deadline
You don't need to be a scientist to create a T-shirt, you can just place an order at Cafe Press...
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
- Slide left hand under bottom of shirt
- Move left hand to location where right arm of shirt joins torso of shirt, under (not over) your shoulder
- Turn left palm to right armpit, form hand into cup, and place lightly against skin, so that the "rim of the cup" surrounds the armpit
- Align right arm parallel with torso
- Bend right elbow up tightly, so forearm doubles back on upper arm
- Without unbending elbow, and without losing contact between left hand "cup" and right armpit, move right arm outward from torso
- Quickly bring right arm back toward your torso
- Repeat
Just like John Entwistle used to do it.Do you have a flag?
Aren't there more important things "computer programmers" could be working on?
There's also a tambourine version (from the same research group): http://www.csiro.au/csiro/content/file/pfka,,.html
The video looks more realistic than the air-guitar one imo.
They should sell this with the slogan, "Be excellent to each other."
After reading the title
my first thought was: "How can they tell?"I would think this would be more impressive as an interface to a virtual environment like Doom/Half-Life/Quake/Everquest, etc. Add something to monitor head movement and it would really start to shine.
We white guys come with a built-in air guitar. :)
your shirt? Or, are you just happy to see me?
(Sorry just had to strum that note...)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Alright - I realize this isn't a glove interface, but what is it with geeks, "virtual" environments (including those in the head), and air guitar? Arguably, from everything I have read about the history of VPL, the DataGlove's first raison-d'etra (probably munged that!) was so that Jaron Lanier (and a buddy?) could play "air guitar" using their Atari ST and MIDI (google around on "VPL" and "DataGlove" if you don't believe me). Since that time, tons of people, companies, and bands have experimented in one form or another to bring the "air guitar" to life.
I don't play the guitar, nor do I know how, and I won't say I have strummed a bit in the air, too - everyone has, I think. However, I know that if I really wanted to play guitar, no amount of movements "in air" will ever be able to recreate what happens with a real guitar. At best, I will get an approximation of (likely) samples of somebody else's real performance.
Finally, I must admit I haven't read the article - but I would be willing to bet that there are 50/50 odds that the article mentions how the technology could be used to "read" sign language by monitoring the movements of the arms (yet another thing the DataGlove was touted as a useful thing to do with it, and yet another that gets hauled out year-after-year).
I guess what I am tired of is all of this rehash of stuff we already know how to do - let's quit playing and demonstrating dead-end uses for VR (and AR) technology, and let's start using it for real world tasks!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Blame me - my submission had the ABC and the csiro release highlighting the video.
Rejected of course.
2006-11-13 05:39:01 Wear Guitar (Index,Music) (rejected)
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
This will undoubtedly go down in the history books as the greatest invention of the 21st Century. In the future, people will design cities around these things.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Nothing to see here, please move along.
In your face! (plays the air guitar)
This would go great with the T-Qualizer http://www.iwantoneofthose.com/searchSite.do?Query =t-qualizer&x=0&y=0
-Carolyn