Exploring Meaning And Intention In Music Conducting

Conducting is a high-level form of expressive musical communication. The possibility of human-computer interaction through a conducting-based interface to a computer performance system has attracted many computer music researchers. This study explores conducting through interviews with conductors and musicians and also through accelerometers attached to conductors during rehearsals with a (human) orchestra and chamber music group. We found that “real” conducting gestures are much more subtle than “textbook” conducting gestures made in the lab, but we observed a very high correlation between the smoothed RMS amplitudes of conductors’ wrist acceleration and the ensembles’ audio.