Keep upright Sputnik/Alamy Stock Photo

The audience’s anticipation rises as the maestro hunches over the piano. The first note echoes around the room, then PFFSZZZZZ! The audience hears a barrage of white noise.

Hunching is bad for the body, so a new system averts it in musicians by making it bad for their music too.

The Musician’s Mirror is the work of London-based designer Arthur Carabott. The software identifies when musicians’ posture is poor and gives them a stark, audible notification.


“Musicians always focus on how their instrument sounds, but it’s more difficult to focus on your posture. A wall of white noise quickly refocuses your attention,” says Peter Buckoke at the Royal College of Music, London.

To use the software, musicians input images of themselves adopting good and bad posture, then highlight the parts of the body they want the system to focus on.

“Guitarists often have problems with their head and shoulder positioning, but piano players are more likely to slouch,” says Carabott.

The musician then practises their instrument in front of a depth camera. At the first hint of bad posture, they receive an audible warning: white noise for an acoustic instrument, and for an electric one the system makes the notes sound out of tune. The worse the posture, the more jarring the response.

Once the practice session is over, the system issues a “heat map” – a single image representing the player’s most common postures.

Tunes on the brain: Why music makes us feel good

Carabott, a guitar player, has been testing the prototype system on himself and students at the Royal College of Music. On 7 February, Carabott demonstrated it at the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851‘s Science Alumni Evening.

According to a 2015 study, around 80 per cent of music academy students suffer from pain in the arm, neck or shoulder according to a study in 2015, but they are often slow to seek help.

“Musicians don’t talk about injury the same way that athletes do,” says Carabott. “The injuries can build up over months or years, and are not reported until they start preventing someone from being able to play.”

Many sports teams already film and analyse their players to forestall preventable injuries arising from poor posture. “Musicians should be able to have the same thing. They are the athletes of the small muscles,” says Carabott.