HandMonizer: a case study for personalized digital musical instrument design

The rapid evolution in technology has found its way to introducing novelty in today's live music performances. In this context, the development of Digital Musical Instruments (DMIs) has obtained increasing attention in recent years. In this paper, we present the development of a DMI called Handmonizer, an interactive artist-oriented harmonizer for musical performance adapted to the needs of a specific singer. A key component of our work is the combination of hand motion recognition and audio signal processing to obtain a smoother interaction. We describe the development methodology, but we also focus on our collaboration with the artist to conceptualize and then refine this tool until the development of the final product. At the end of this paper, we define an evaluation strategy, collecting feedback with a questionnaire addressed to the singer. Our aim in presenting this evaluation strategy is to help other engineers keen to develop cutting-edge technologies by working in partnership with artists. While results are not definitive, we believe that the chosen methodology could be of interest to other DMI researchers. Moreover, the modular nature of the Handmonizer makes it easily adaptable to further developments concerning the Internet of Sounds (IoS) and Networked Music Performances (NMP).