Today, I added the ability to change the volume of the sound based on the acceleration value, or how quickly the hand is moved, as well as change the frequency of the sound and thus change the note being played using a simple beat counter. I also noticed that the beat detection works almost flawlessly while I make the conductor’s motions repeatedly, which is a good sign that my threshold value is close to the ideal value, if there is one.

Now that the beat detection is working for the most part, the next thing I need to do is to figure out how to take these beats and either: a) convert them to MIDI messages, or b) route them through JACK to another application. Whichever library I find and use, it has to be one that doesn’t involve a sleep function that causes the entire program to freeze for the duration of the sleep.