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Crosscale: A 3D virtual musical instrument interface

Abstract:

Inspired by principles for designing musical instruments we implemented a new 3D virtual instrument with a particular mapping of touchable virtual spheres to notes and chords of a given musical scale. The objects are metaphors for note keys organized in multiple lines, forming a playable spatial instrument where the player can perform certain sequences of notes and chords across the scale employing short gestures that minimizes jump distances. The idea of different arrangements for notes over the playable space is not new, being pursued on alternative keyboards for instance. This implementation employed an Oculus Rift and a Razer Hydra for gesture input and showed that customization of instrumental mappings using 3D tools can contribute to ease the performance of complex songs by allowing fast execution of specific note combinations.