Sensorimotor Control of Sound-Producing Gestures, Musical Gestures - Sound, Movement, and Meaning

In this chapter, we focus on sensorimotor models of sound-producing gestures. These models are studied from two different viewpoints, namely theories for motor control, and computer synthesis of avatars that produce human gesture. The theories aim to understand gesture on the basis of the underlying biomechanics, whereas the computer synthesis aims to understand entire gestures on the basis ofsensorimotor control models The emphasis of this chapter is on hand-arm gestures, from simple control tasks such as pointing and reaching, to skilled tasks requiring complex coordination mechanisms such as playing the piano.