A heart rate presentation system for keeping music tempo in live performance

It is important for musicians to show their true ability in live performance. However many musicians make mistakes, such as a keystroke error or a fingering error, because their music tempo in live performance is different from that in daily practice. It is difficult to calm the mind and overcome feelings such as nervousness and excitement in live performance. Our preliminary evaluation showed that music tempo is related to the heart rate (HR) of a musician. If the musician notices his/her own mental condition, he/she tries to alter their performance. For example, a musician tries to play in slower tempo in live performance than in daily practice, when he/she knows that his/her HR in live performance is higher than in daily practice. Therefore, the goal of our study is to design and implement a heart rate presentation system for keeping music tempo in live performance. The proposed system shows a musician his/her heart rate from daily practice and his/her current heart rate before his/her performance. We have developed a prototype system, and evaluated its effectiveness through actual use of the prototype system. We found that it had advantages over comparative methods.