MindMotion: Modular Brainwave and Gesture Musical System

Abstract

As the rise in popularity of wearable technologies is very recent, there is an underexplored potential in the utilization of all the numerous wearable technologies in various fields. Due my interest in music, for this project I focus on exploring the applications of consumer EEGs and data gloves in the creation of musical instruments. Specifically, I created a modular musical instrument that for the present can 1), play all 12 notes of the Western scale, in 3 octaves, where the notes are played by hand gestures using a pair of gloves equipped with bend sensors and accelerometers, and 2), interface with other wearable technologies, in this case an EEG headset, which plays beats based on the electrical activity of the brain. The EEG beats are modulated by hand gestures, which can turn beats on or off and modify their tempo. While the initial goal for part two of my work was to make the system fully portable, in the end I decided on a modular system that is partially portable (the EEG headset module) so that the main system can easily be augmented with additional wearable device modules. The final product is an instrument that can be picked up by the musical neophyte and is full-featured enough to be used by a serious musician, as well as a system that can easily be augmented by developers making their own wearable device modules.