Music Interface Manipulated by EMG Signals-Music Interface System for the Playing of Computer Music by People with Physical Disabilities

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel EMG-controlled music interface for people with severe physical disabilities. In this system, EMG signals are measured using some electrodes attached to the skin surface, and three parameters, which are timing information, duration of muscle activation level, and time derivative of muscle activation level, are extracted from the measured EMG signals. By using the abovementioned three parameters, tempo, nuance, and volume of prepared music score data, respectively, are controlled. In order to verify that people with severe physical disabilities can play music using this system, an experiment is conducted on patients with cervical spine injuries by using EMG signals measured from two pairs of electrodes attached to the patients' faces. Experimental results show that the patients can play music by three discriminated motions and also voluntarily play music like a conductor, on the basis of the allocated tempo, nuance, and volume. The possibility of the system controlling music information such as tempo is also verified through comparison experiments using a MIDI keyboard. In addition, we confirm that there is no statistical difference between the proposed system and a MIDI keyboard, and this system enables the patients to play music reflecting how they want to perform.