Tibetan Singing Prayer Wheel: A Hybrid Musical- Spiritual Instrument Using Gestural Control

This paper presents the Tibetan Singing Prayer Wheel, a hand-held, wireless, sensor-based musical instrument with a human-computer interface that simultaneously processes vocals and synthesizes sound based on the performer's hand gestures with a one-to-many mapping strategy. A physical model simulates the singing bowl, while a modal reverberator and a delay-and-window effect process the performer's vocals. This system is designed for an electroacoustic vocalist interested in using a solo instrument to achieve performance goals that would normally require multiple instruments and activities.