Video-game tech hits classical music
Inside a darkened studio at Ball State University here, world-renowned classical musician Francois Rabbath stands surrounded by infrared lights.
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Bass player’s ‘fingering gymnastics’ preserved with BSU’s help
The motion capture technology that brought to life characters in Shrek and Lord of The Rings is being used this week at Ball State University to record the talents of one of the world’s most recognized string bassists.
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The Arts and Academe
Musical composers can leave their work behind as recordings or sheet music when they die, but instrumentalists have a harder time leaving behind an important part of their achievement — their technique. The feverish Francois Rabbath, regarded by many critics as one of the world’s greatest virtuoso double bassists, is trying to pass on the details of his unusual way of playing his instrument. Mr. Rabbath recently retired from the Paris Opera Orchestra and will turn 75 next month.
Thanks to Hans Sturm, an associate professor of music at Ball State University. Ball State’s Biomechanics Laboratory is now working to document and preserve Mr. Rabbath’s bow strokes and fingering gymnastics.
As a 13-year-old is Syria, Mr. Rabbath swiped a yellowed method book for double bass from a decorative display in a tailor’s shop. He taught himself to play and eventually made his way to Paris in the 1950s. Mr. Rabbath’s unusual method — almost embracing the instrument rather than standing upright — startled traditionalists.
After just a few lessons he dropped out of the Paris Conservatory and honed his techniques, he says, by watching crabs’ spindly legs scurry over sand and trying to slide his fingers over the strings in a similar way. In more than five decades of classical and jazz performances, he has helped popularize the double bass as a solo instrument.
Later this month, Mr. Rabbath will play in Ball State’s lab with more than two dozen tiny reflectors affixed to his left hand — and still more on his arms and shoulders. Using strobe lights and cameras, technicians will create a video model that mimics the musician’s idosyncratic movements, down to the velocity and acceleration of his joints.
Mr. Strum, president-elect of the International Society of Bassists, came up with the idea while reading about a video-game simulation of Tiger Wood’s sweet stroke. “My thought was, Wow, if they can do this for a golf swing, why can’t we do it for the motion of the bow?” he says. Ball State’s first interactive DVD with Mr. Rabbath, Art of the Bow, came out last May and has since netted $30,000 in sales. The second will be ready by the end of the year.
When pupils see the recording, “they understand the movement and they begin to do it,” says Mr. Rabbath.
Published in “The Chronicle of Higher Education - February 24, 2006
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Legendary bassist returns to Ball State to produce sequel to top-selling DVD
Bass virtuoso Francois Rabbath is returning to Ball State to produce a second DVD Feb. 27-28.
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Work on New Rabbath DVD Begins
François Rabbath returns to Ball State University to begin work on a new DVD, Art of the Left Hand with François Rabbath. Like the very successful Art of the Bow with François Rabbath DVD, this DVD will feature lecture/demonstrations, selectable camera angles, live performances, and biomechanics animations featuring the next generation of animation technology.
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Double Bassist Magazine Review
In this major new DVD presentation the formidable bowing technique of Francois
Rabbath is exhaustively analysed using state-of-the-art video game technology
alongside more conventional methods. In employing the talents of Ball State
University’s Biomechanics Lab, producer and director Hans Sturm takes advantage
of technology previously used to perfect Tiger Woods’ golf swing.
Read the DVD Review from Double Bassist Magazine (PDF)
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