Towards a Dynamic Model of the Palm Mute Guitar Technique Based on Capturing Pressure Profiles Between the Guitar Strings

Electric guitar is one of the most emblematic musical instruments. It benefits from a large community that constantly extends its frontiers by innovating playing technique and adding control surfaces. This work focuses on palm muting, one of the most known electric guitar techniques. This technique is produced when the palm of the picking hand is used to damp the strings and this can have a strong effect on the timbre and dynamics of sound. However there are not known sensors or sound analysis techniques to precisely measure this effect. We introduce a new approach of sensing performance gestures by using pressure sensors between the strings. We explored several designs for the sensing system and have performed preliminary experiments on the relationship between the palm pressure, the sound and the behavior of the picking hand.