A Prototype of Virtual Drum Performance System with a Head-Mounted Display

The goal of our study is to develop a virtual remote performance system that enables musicians who are distant from each other to play ensemble performances using virtual reality (VR) technologies. In ensemble performances, musicians usually use gestures to communicate with each other. Therefore, as the first step, we have developed a drum performance system that displays a computer-generated character that represents a bass player. The drummer wears a head-mounted display, which displays the computer-graphics (CG) bass-player character. As the human bass player moves in front of a Kinect sensor, the CG-based character's movements are synchronized with those of the human bass player. An experiment was carried out to demonstrate the performance of the system.