Haptic sensation in organ playing

Conference poster, 2010

This paper presents a new research project, which aims to reveal the elements of haptic sensation in playing pipe organ with mechanical tracker actions. In order to reach this goal sets of experiments will be carried out. Layout of these experiments are (1) measuring manual key signatures and analyzing them together with the interviews with expert organists to study the extent they can feel and communicate key properties, (2) measuring dynamical properties of key action, recording sound and recording organist’s movements simultaneously during performance, and (3) running psychophysical experiments on expert organists using an experimental keyboard where key action can be simulated and altered. The outcome of this research project will contribute to organ building and documentation and new class of haptics-enabled digital musical instruments.