Temporal Differences in String Bowing of Symphony Orchestra Players

Abstract

A study on the temporal differences between the bowing of string instrument players in an orchestra is presented. A high quality video of a professional symphony orchestra was recorded high above the first rows of the audience area. The movement of the instrument bodies and the bow hands of the players were tracked with the video to resolve the time instants when the directions of the bow movements changed for individual players. The proposed tracking approach is evaluated extensively against several other methods. The temporal distributions of the bow direction changes were analysed from one longer and three shorter cases. The results indicate that one half of the bow strokes of a group of three players occur in an approximate 60 ms time-frame.

Acknowledgements

The research leading to these results has received funding from the Academy of Finland, project nos. [218238 and 140786] and the European Research Council under the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement no. [203636]. J. Pätynen wishes to thank the Finnish Foundation for Technology Promotion and Nokia Foundation for supporting the research.