- What is gesture.live?
- gesture.live is a musical instrument you play with hand gestures in front of a webcam. The camera watches your hands and turns what they do into chords, bass, drums, melody and effects, live, in a browser tab.
- Do I need to install anything?
- No. It runs in a browser tab. There is no app to download, no plugin, no account and no sign-up.
- Is it free?
- Yes. It is free to use, with nothing held back behind a payment.
- Is my video uploaded anywhere?
- No. The hand tracking runs in WebAssembly on your own machine and there is no server for a camera frame to be sent to, so nothing leaves your device. If you record a take, the file is made in the browser and handed to you.
- Do I need any special hardware?
- No. Any computer or phone with a camera and a browser will do. There is no MIDI controller, no microphone and no external gear involved.
- Which browsers does it work in?
- Chrome is recommended, and recent versions of Edge, Safari and Firefox work too. The in-app browsers inside Instagram, TikTok and similar apps cannot ask for camera access, so open the link in a normal browser instead.
- Does it work on a phone?
- Yes, held sideways. Landscape is the orientation the instrument is laid out for, and a phone turned upright will ask you to rotate it.
- Does it work on a Chromebook?
- Yes. A Chromebook has the two things it needs, a browser and a camera, and nothing has to be installed on the machine.
- Do I need to know music theory?
- No. The chord hand counts on your fingers, one finger for the first chord of the key, two for the second, and so on. Everything it can reach is already in key, so there is no wrong note to play.
- Can I record what I play?
- Yes. Takes are recorded in the browser with the picture and the music together, as a wide frame, a vertical one sized for a phone, or both at once.
- Can I use it in a classroom?
- Yes. There is nothing to install and no accounts to create, so one laptop and a projector are enough for a whole room, and every student can open it on their own machine at home afterwards.
- The camera is blocked. What now?
- Use the camera icon in the address bar to allow it, then press start again. Once a browser has blocked a camera it stops showing the prompt, so pressing start on its own cannot recover it.
- Why can I not hear anything?
- Browsers refuse to start audio until you have interacted with the page, so press start first. If it is still silent, check the tab is not muted and that the right output device is selected.