A Wearable Technology For Wind Musicians: Does It Matter How You Breathe?

Lucie F Jones, Jeffrey Boyd, Jeremy Brown, and Hua Shen

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract

This paper presents an affordable and accessible wearable technology for wind musicians which provides real-time biofeedback on their breathing. We developed the abdominal thoracic expansion measurement prototype wearable technology (ATEM-P), to measure a wind musician’s breathing-induced expansion and contraction while they are playing. Our first study validates the ATEM-P with the gold standard of medical grade respiratory exertion measurement devices, the respiratory plethysmography inductance system (RIP). The results show that the ATEM-P has a strong correlation to the RIP system. Our second study provides quantitative and qualitative data about the correlation between a musician’s breathing technique and the quality of their performance. We expected the results to show a correlation between the ATEM-P peak amplitudes and the quality of performance, i.e. better breathing-induced expansion leads to better quality of performance, however this was not the case. The results did show that there is a correlation between a musician’s quality of performance and breath period. Results from the studies show that the ATEM-P has potential as an affordable and accessible wearable technology for wind musicians: a performance enhancement tool and an educational tool.

Citation

Lucie F Jones, Jeffrey Boyd, Jeremy Brown, and Hua Shen. 2023. A Wearable Technology For Wind Musicians: Does It Matter How You Breathe?. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.11189184

BibTeX Entry

@inproceedings{nime2023_40,
 abstract = {This paper presents an affordable and accessible wearable technology for wind musicians which provides real-time biofeedback on their breathing. We developed the abdominal thoracic expansion measurement prototype wearable technology (ATEM-P), to measure a wind musician’s breathing-induced expansion and contraction while they are playing.
Our first study validates the ATEM-P with the gold standard of medical grade respiratory exertion measurement devices, the respiratory plethysmography inductance system (RIP). The results show that the ATEM-P has a strong correlation to the RIP system.
Our second study provides quantitative and qualitative data about the correlation between a musician’s breathing technique and the quality of their performance. We expected the results to show a correlation between the ATEM-P peak amplitudes and the quality of performance, i.e. better breathing-induced expansion leads to better quality of performance, however this was not the case. The results did show that there is a correlation between a musician’s quality of performance and breath period.
Results from the studies show that the ATEM-P has potential as an affordable and accessible wearable technology for wind musicians: a performance enhancement tool and an educational tool.},
 address = {Mexico City, Mexico},
 articleno = {40},
 author = {Lucie F Jones and Jeffrey  Boyd and Jeremy Brown and Hua Shen},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.11189184},
 editor = {Miguel Ortiz and Adnan Marquez-Borbon},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 month = {May},
 numpages = {11},
 pages = {277--287},
 title = {A Wearable Technology For Wind Musicians: Does It Matter How You Breathe?},
 track = {Papers},
 url = {http://nime.org/proceedings/2023/nime2023_40.pdf},
 year = {2023}
}