GuitarPie: Using the Fretboard of an Electric Guitar for Audio-Based Pie Menu Interaction

Abstract. Nowadays, electric guitars are often used together with digital interfaces. For instance, tablature applications can support guitar practice by rendering and playing back the tabs of individual instrument tracks of a song (guitar, drums, etc.). However, those interfaces are typically controlled via mouse and keyboard or via touch input. This means that controlling and configuring playback during practice can lead to high switching costs, as learners often need to switch between playing and interface control. In this paper, we explore the use of audio input from an unmodified electric guitar to enable interface control without letting go of the guitar. We present GuitarPie, an audio-based pie menu interaction method. GuitarPie utilizes the grid-like structure of a fretboard to spatially represent audio-controlled operations, avoiding the need to memorize note sequences. Furthermore, we implemented TabCtrl, a tablature interface that uses GuitarPie and other audio-based interaction methods for interface control.