The Musician’s Mirror: an objective observer for posture and technique

Industrial Design Student 2015

Arthur Carabott
Royal College of Art / Imperial College London
Global Innovation Design

The Musician’s Mirror is a tool to help musicians correct bad habits in their technique, posture and form. A computer vision based system, it allows the musician to track any part of their body and be given feedback when they fall into bad habits. The musician or their teacher can apply labels for good and bad positions, e.g. hunched shoulders or a slouched back would be labelled as positions to avoid.

The system provides real-time “thinking fast” audio feedback whenever the musician falls into a bad habit. For acoustic instruments this is white noise, while for electric instruments the system can distort the sound of the instrument itself. Non real-time “thinking slow” feedback is provided in the form of a visual heatmap that summarises hours of practising, showing the positions the musician spent the most time in.