Music Is My Weapon

Everyone remember Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (followed up by the not-so-excellent sequel)? It's the movie that launched Keanu Reeve's career, and doused whatshisnames career. Anyway, one byproduct of this movie was the air guitar, which remained a cult icon for the decade ahead.

Once a fabled intrument, now the Helsinki University of Technology adds a genuine working version of the air guitar to the world of technology and instruments. The Virtual Air Guitar project adds genuine electric guitar sounds to the passionately played air guitar.

A computer is used to monitor the hand movements and comparing riffs to match frantic mid-air finger work. By responding instantly to a wide variety of gestures it promises to turn even the least musically gifted air guitarist to a virtual fret board virtuoso.

All that's needed to rock out is a video camera and a computer hooked up to an appropriately loud set of speakers.

Frenetic strumming is different than your regular 5 string strumming. The Finnish team created a library of guitar sounds based around the pentatonic minor scale – a progression commonly used for rock guitar solos – in order to create the right sound for their virtual instrument.

As a player moves their left hand along the neck of their virtual guitar, the computer will run through the scale. Holding it one place while strumming frenetically produces fret board tricks such as hammer-ons – where slapping a finger onto an already vibrating string produces a higher note – and blues bends, which give a distinctive rock twang. And a floor pedal can also be used to switch the system into mode that plays several different chords.

The project is currently being demonstrated at the Heureka Science Centre in Finland where it has been played more than 5000 times over the last month, Kanerva says. As a follow-up, the researchers are working on a version that will be compatible with a normal webcam and computer, thus giving wannabe rock stars the opportunity to practise their art in the privacy of their bedroom.

For Kanerva, who had to research different guitar playing tricks, the project has had another benefit. "I wasn't a guitarist before I started the project," he says. "But I am now."

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