:: Art of the Bow with François Rabbath ::

Read the Bass World Magazine article (PDF)

Video game technology captures bass virtuoso’s bow technique (PDF)

Among Francois Rabbath’s many current projects is a DVD entitled “Art of the Bow”. Working in conjunction with Professor Hans Sturm at Ball State University, Indiana, US, the project [video taped] Rabbath playing from four different angles. With a DVD’s controls, viewers can slow down playback of these recordings to observe Rabbath’s actions scene by scene.

Sturm and his team also used high speed motion capture tools to [analyze] the movement of Rabbath’s bowing arm, employing the same technology used in video games and films such as the Matrix. In the University’s Biomechanics Lab, the team attached a series of lighted points to Rabbath and used 200 frames-per-second high speed cameras to record his movements. As a result, the University has been able to show in depth the subtleties of seven different families of bow stroke using a series of computer generated animations. The work was devised as a joint project between the departments of Music Performance, Music Engineering, Biomechanics and the Human Performance Laboratory at Ball State.

After viewing a prototype of the project, Rabbath agreed to take part and completed his role in the work in early June 2004. By this stage, the project had amassed 8 hours of video footage, 35 biomechanical trials, 2.5 hours of interviews and live concert footage, plus a collection of still photographs.

- Patrick Neher
Double Bassist Magazine, Autumn 2004