In this document a software to support the teaching of choral conducting is proposed based on the conducting classes observed while coursing the discipline: Musical Analysis for Performance on the Choral Universe in the Music Department of the School of Arts and Communications of University of Sao Paulo. Through this software is possible to: (i) monitor, (ii) measure and (iii) evaluate the choral conducting patterns (gestures) performed and the body positions of the student. The main objective

more »

... s to allow, by interacting with the software, that the student improves his body self-perception by having his body position monitored while he performs the conducting patterns and sees himself tridimensionally projected in the system. To have this monitoring in place, three modules were created such that the needed configurations could be done as well as the visualization could have been done, they are: (a) conducting patterns configuration module, where the conducting patterns are created or modified; (b) practice creation module, the practices can be (b.1) synthetical, in this case they use the conducting patterns defined in (a), placing them in sequences accross the time which are associated to the hands of the conductor, or (b.2) recorded, in which case the body movements are recorded for a period of time in front of the sensor, the positions are stored along time and allow to compare these movements recorded with the user information in realtime; and (c), the visualization module, where the user can (c.1) watch a replay of the practices already performed, or configured previously; (c.2) compare and see diversified practices, or yet, (c.3) effectivelly practice them, in which case an evaluation mark will be given at the end. The idea is that students can do and repeat practices over, improving their marks and gestures through self-perception. Another important point is that students and conductors can interact by exchanging configurations, since all of them are saved in files, which allows creating a choral conducting repository which would extrapolate the classroom boundaries. To implement such solution computer vision algorithms were applied in the context of choral conducting, together with the Kinect sensor to help capturing the body information. At last, this work tries does the kick off for teaching conductors through the usage of technology, allowing that this art is teached based on quantitative data which can help the conductor drawing conclusions over the current conducting schools and methods.