Snare Drum Notator

The goal of this project is to simplify the process of generating sheet music from played music. It is normally a complex and time intensive process that often interferes with creativity. This snare drum notator will simplify the process by recording the drum strokes and directly creating sheet music from the recording. This can also be an aid to those who are learning how to play the snare drum. As it allows quick feedback.

Sheet Music Style
The sheet music will be stored through the file format of Music XML. This format has become a popular standard in recent years, and is compatible with popular music editing software (ex: Sibelius and Finale).

The following elements are common in snare drum music and will be supported by our team:
 * Volume/dynamics
 * Sticking(left, right, or both hands)
 * Position on the pad
 * Back of the stick vs front of the stick
 * Rudiments(rolls, flams, rimshots, ...)
 * Accents (louder hits) vs taps (softer hits) relatie to current volume
 * Tempo
 * Whether the user is hitting the rim or the pad
 * Dynamics (increasing/decreasing volume)
 * Time signature
 * Rests

Design Concepts
When brainstorming ideas for how to build a Snare Drum Notator the following criteria were considered of the hardware.


 * Hit detection is the ability to detect a drum stroke.
 * Durability is how long the item in question would last with prolonged use.
 * Precision is how accurate, and consistent the data would be gathered.
 * Information parsing is how easily the information gathered can be translated into sheet music.
 * Quick User Input is how easily the user can control the software. such as starting, stopping, and setting the tempo.

Based on the above criteria, gyroscopes on both arms would be the most optimal approach. The gyroscopes are able to meet the expectations of every category above while at the same time grant the potential of extra user input without excess hardware. In particular the ability to detect left and right drum strokes easily was especially appealing.

Basic Drumming Tests
Below is the initial gathering of data. This data will be used as a guide to create the actual note parsing. As you can see on the far left side is what music was played on the snare drum. While the next two columns are the Left and Right hand respectively.