To Örebro University

This Master’s thesis work presents an algorithmic approach for automatic synthesis

of the violin’s instrumental gesture controls. Focusing on

” Détaché”,

as a sustained bow motion technique, this work aims to give an instrumental

gesture model generator (a physical performer model) to learn an appropriate

representative function based on a group of already available contours that

belong to different performances of the same bowing technique. Contours are

main physical parameters of bowing which can be used as inputs of a physical

sound model, i.e virtual violin, in order to produce the expected sound. During

this work the primary physical parameters are under study, In particular

bow

transversal velocity

(v), bow pressing force(f) and bow-bridge distance(d).

The result of this work then can be generalized to cover the other bowing

techniques, in particular sustained techniques like different derivatives of

legato. B-splines were used in order to devise a parametric, flexible and robust

model which is capable in capturing subtle variations in the time continuum

of input parameters. A series of test experiments has been conducted in order

to evaluate the learned model, where people with strong background in music

and a considerable proficiency in playing musical instruments were asked to

evaluate the sounds produced by the synthetic model.

The results of evaluation were to high extent satisfactory, indicating that

the quality of the sound produced as the result of artificial gestures (outputs of

performer model) were close enough to the sound produced by the gestures of

experienced violin players.

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