Don't need a guitar anymore, you can now use the air guitar.

news.yahoo.com...

CANBERRA, Australia - Scientists announced Monday that they have developed a high-tech T-shirt that turns the strumming of an air guitar into music.

The T-shirt has motion sensors built into its elbows that pick up the wearer's arm motions and relay them wirelessly to a computer which interprets them as guitar riffs, said Richard Helmer, an engineer who leads the research team from the government's Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization.

One arm is interpreted as picking chords while the other strums. The "wearable instrument shirt" is adaptable to both right and left-handed would-be rock stars.

"It's an easy-to-use, virtual instrument that allows real-time music making even by players without significant musical or computing skills," Helmer said in a statement.

Pretty interesting product. I'm sure there are people here who prefers to have a real guitar in their hands to get a feel of it and play, instead of strumming the strings in the air with nothing to hold on, except your own hands.

I'm curious as to how accurate this thing is...

It mentions interpereting the formation of chords and the strumming of the strings, so my question is, is this thing accurate enough to be used by people who play guitar to practice? I mean... you can't always lug a guitar around with you... that might be handy!!

As an guitar player, Im all for people making music anyway possible. But making music on a virtual guitar is comparable to making love to a virtual woman.

I realize this is a commercial product that is just a short cut to real musicianship but what the hell, if it's fun, enjoy; it might prompt some to discover the real romance between people and wire and wood.

Try this for a REAL musical experience; buy a $15 blues harp, take some online lessons and be able to Really play the blues in One day. Not like Little Walter but still.......

Rock on my brothers and sisters!!!

[edit on 13-11-2006 by whaaa]

Originally posted by Djarums
Is this thing accurate enough to be used by people who play guitar to practice?

Twenty-nine years of playing the guitar tells me no.

'Playing an instrument' means manipulating a physical object to obtain a sound. This manipulation is effected through body movements -- finger pressure and so on -- made against the physical resistance of the instrument itself.

A musician exerts fine control over the sound produced by his instrument through tiny adjustments of the feedback loop instrument-ears-brain-fingers-instrument. Learning to do this is the basic object of practice.

You cannot achieve this object unless all elements of the feedback loop are in place. That includes your guitar, obviously. Somehow I don't think a t-shirt will suffice.

However, if the idea of playing an invisible instrument thingy pushes your strap button, see below.

Originally posted by whaaa
Making music on a virtual guitar is comparable to making love to a virtual woman.

Right on target there, whaaa.

However, as any adolescent male who's ever made eyes at his bedroom ceiling can testify, making love to a virtual woman isn't entirely without its consolations.

Perhaps something of the same thought was in Léon Theremin's mind when, in 1919, he invented the instrument that bears his name. Or perhaps not.

At any rate, the theremin has been only a qualified success, though it did find favour with the world's most famous 'Satanist'.

Then there's the laser harp, which hasn't been much of a success either.

Looks like nothing can substitute for actual frottage... still, I wonder if there are any more of these thin-air prodigies knocking about the world. Any idea, fellow members?

I can see amatuer guitarists in grade 9 buying this kind of thing.

Seriously... I am a musician and I can play guitar as a secondary instrument and I can't see myself buying this.

whaaa & Astyanax, I'm with you.

While everybody should experience the wonders of making music, I feel this is just a shortcut only.

Plus there are so many aspects of making music, playing an instrument is but one piece.

Not having heard it other than the segment they ran on last nights news, I don't think this will deliver the goods for the serious muso. But who know where this tech will be in 10 years?!?!?!

Being a tone junkie and forever on the quest to achieve 'that' sound, emulation only lengthens that quest imo.

But hey, I'm all for exploration of new sounds and 3 sec samples that can lift a song or that hook to the next level.

Plus my air guitaring doesn't need anything more, I rule.

rock on.... as always.

Originally posted by one_small_step
Who know where this tech will be in 10 years?

Or less. I suppose one of those virtual-reality pressure glove-type devices might do the trick, if it could be made sensitive and responsive enough.

Personally, I like wood and wire. And as a dedicated tone freak who believes in the mystical qualities of vintage American guitars and point-to-point valve amp technology (and can't even listen to an mp3 without wanting to chew his own foot off), it's going to take a lot of selling before I'm sold on all this newfangled virtual stuff. For the moment, anyway.

From what I read, it's not a replacement for a guitar that a musician could conceivably use to make actual original music, it's more like a fancy version of those toy guitars for kids with big-ass buttons on the "fretboard" which play a midi or pre-recorded files when pressed. We are a long way from creating tech which will be able to interpret the infinite subtle nuances of guitar playing and reproduce it as sound.

"It's an easy-to-use, virtual instrument that allows real-time music making even by players without significant musical or computing skills," Helmer said in a statement.

If it doesn't require any musical skills, then there's no way that it is reproducing exactly what your fingers are doing note for note, bend for bend, Fmaj7#5 chord for F maj7#5 chord.

I think my '72 tobacco sunburst Les Paul will escape redundancy for quite a few decades yet.

[edit on 2006-11-14 by wecomeinpeace]

Originally posted by wecomeinpeace
I think my '72 tobacco sunburst Les Paul will escape redundancy for quite a few decades yet.

There's no need to make the rest of us all green and breathy, you know.

sounds as feasable as replacing a keyboard synth with a theramin.

with no pitchbends,vibrato,damping etc you lose the whole point of acoustic instruments.

I actually rigged up a virtual drumkit using piezo flat mics from maplins that you could put on the soles of your shoes and anywhere else you wanted.Hooked up to an Alesis DM5 it produced a real sampled drumkit including velocity sensing..But drummers still complained they couldn,t ''feel'' the instrument no matter how accurate it sounded.
You have to play for years to get what they mean.

Voting ''BIG TOY'' for this one.

is it accurate? i doubt...

I just move my hands and make noise with my mouth...

or I stick to the piano. Chicks love pianists.

That's interesting, I like to see how you would need to maneuver your arms to get that tapping and swipe picking sound.