Virtual kompang: mapping in-air hand gestures for music interaction using gestural musical controller

Abstract

The introduction of new gesture interfaces has been expanding the possibilities of creating new Digital Musical Instruments (DMI). However, the created interfaces are mainly focused on modern western musical instruments such as piano, drum and guitar. This paper presents a virtual musical instrument, namely Virtual Kompang, a traditional Malay percussion instrument. The interface design and its implementation are presented in this paper. The results of a guessability study are presented in the study to elicit end-user hand movement to map onto commands. The study demonstrated the existing of common hand gestures among the users on mapping with the selected commands. A consensus set of gestures is presented as the outcome of this study.

Keywords: Digital Music Instrument, Virtual Environment, Gestural Control, Leap Motion, Virtual Instrument