Toward Simulation of Violin Sound Based on BowingGestures
Sina Nakhostin · 2012
This Master’s thesis work presents an algorithmic approach for automatic synthesisof the violin’s instrumental gesture controls. Focusing on” Detache”,as a sustained bow motion technique, this work aims to give an instrumentalgesture model generator (a physical performer model) to learn an appropriaterepresentative function based on a group of already available contours thatbelong to different performances of the same bowing technique. Contours aremain physical parameters of bowing which can be used as inputs of a physicalsound model, i.e virtual violin, in order to produce the expected sound. Duringthis work the primary physical parameters are under study, In particularbowtransversal velocity(v), bow pressing force(f) and bow-bridge distance(d).The result of this work then can be generalized to cover the other bowingtechniques, in particular sustained techniques like different derivatives oflegato. B-splines were used in order to devise a parametric, flexible and robustmodel which is capable in capturing subtle variations in the time continuumof input parameters. A series of test experiments has been conducted in orderto evaluate the learned model, where people with strong background in musicand a considerable proficiency in playing musical instruments were asked toevaluate the sounds produced by the synthetic model.The results of evaluation were to high extent satisfactory, indicating thatthe quality of the sound produced as the result of artificial gestures (outputs ofperformer model) were close enough to the sound produced by the gestures ofexperienced violin players.i