"Sensing and Interpretations of Palm Muting Gestures on the Electric Guitar"
Julien Biral
University of Mons (visiting scholar at residence at CNMAT)

The palm muting technique is executed by dampening the strings near the bridge with the picking hand. This has a significant effect on the timbre and dynamics of the guitar sound. The gesture has not been widely studied because of the challenges of sensing it. We will introduce a new electrotextile-based sensing system built at CNMAT to solve this problem and discuss interesting results it has yielded on palm muting gestures. We will also discuss new affordances for sound processing that the sensor provides.