Introducing GenVirtual: an augmented reality musical interface to support the “music-making” for people with motor and cognitive disability

Abstract

This paper presents the research and development of GenVirtual, an augmented reality musical interface to support the “music-making” for children with physical disabilities and cognitive. GenVirtual enables adding in the real world, virtual objects that emit audible sounds of various musical instruments like the stringed, wind and percussion. Virtual objects are handled naturally by hand, without the use of conventional apparatuses interaction. During the development phase, GenVirtual was evaluated by a group of 11 experts in music in order to validate the set of requirements related to pedagogical and therapeutic "make music". At the end of development, GenVirtual was evaluated by a group of 5 children with cognitive and motor deficits in music therapy sessions. Results showed that GenVirtual possible approaches used in the "musicmaking". Moreover, improved performance and stimulating action of children, these characteristics that contribute to motivation during the “music-making”.