Description:
Respiration is a foundational dimension of musical expression, serving as the primary acoustic power source in breath-driven performance, such as singing and wind-instrument playing. While conventional monitoring systems effectively capture respiratory kinematics parameters in laboratory settings, expert vocal performance demands an unprecedented degree of physical responsiveness, spatial granularity, and kinematic sensitivity to track high-speed micro-breathing transients and withstand continuous movement noise. To address these rigorous performance requirements, we introduce carbon-nanotube (CNT) strain sensors into respiratory tracking, capitalizing on their sensitivity, comfort, and resilience. We present GummiSoma, a textile garment developed through a first-person-led co-design trajectory in an interdisciplinary team. Moving from a single-sensor baseline band (V1), we parameterized a definitive six-channel layout across three anatomical regions. This spatial mapping guided a laboratory prototype (V2) for immediate kinetic fitting, culminating in a professional-grade textile garment (V3). By integrating CNT sensors, GummiSoma captures complex, non-uniform thoracic and abdominal dynamics while remaining entirely non-intrusive to the performer’s kinesthetic flow.
IDMIL Participants:
External Participants:
Yamaha Corporation: Katsunori Suzuki, Naoto Kojima, Yohei Wada, Akira Maezawa
McGill University: Isabelle Cossette
Research Areas:
Funding:
- FQRSC
Publications:
- Piao, Z., Suzuki, K., Kojima, N., Wada, Y., Cossette, I., Wanderley, M. M., Maezawa, A. (2026). GummiSoma: Co-Designing a Carbon-Nanotube Strain-Sensing Garment for Respiratory Tracking in Vocal Performance. In ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp Companion ’26) (pp. 5). Shanghai, China.