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}
}