A review of interactive conducting systems: 1970-2015

Abstract

Inspired by the expressiveness of gestures used by conductors, research in designing interactive conducting systems has explored numerous techniques. The design of more natural, expressive, and intuitive interfaces for communicating with computers could benefit from such techniques. The growth of whole-body interaction systems using motion-capture sensors creates enormous incentives for better understanding this research. To that end, we retraced the history of interactive conducting systems that attempt to come to grips with interpreting and exploiting the full potential of expressivity in the movement of conductors and to apply that to a computer interface. We focused on 55 papers, published from 1970 to 2015, that form the core of this history. We examined each system using four categories: interface (hardware), gestures (features), computational methods, and output parameters. We then conducted a thematic analysis, discussing how insights have inspired researchers to design a better user experience, improving naturalness, expressiveness and intuitiveness in interfaces over four decades.