Wind instrument finger movement analyses

[Drumstuck]

I'm completely new to electronics and want to measure individual finger movements on one specific wind instrument in the hope of either creating a teaching aid or a new form of electronic instrument. Can anybody recommend any components for this? or the best way to do it? My first thoughts were either some sort of close-range proximity sensor or a twin part system consisting of LED and separate light sensor with a raspberry pi.

 

[Gryd3]

I'm completely new to electronics and want to measure individual finger movements on one specific wind instrument in the hope of either creating a teaching aid or a new form of electronic instrument. Can anybody recommend any components for this? or the best way to do it? My first thoughts were either some sort of close-range proximity sensor or a twin part system consisting of LED and separate light sensor with a raspberry pi.

If I were you, I'd avoid the Pi for this for most applications you may end up applying.
You have a couple options in my opinion:
-Independent sensors.
-Image recognition.

The sensor approach will require a position, or angular sensor for each moving part, whereas the image recognition will require quite a bit more work on the software side of things, but will only require slight modifications to track additional points.
Regardless of your approach, I have theory, but no practice on the subject.
In addition to the electronics, check out OpenCV for the image recognition portion of the project if you decide that route.

 

[Drumstuck]

Thank you so kindly sir for a such a fast and helpful response. I had thought about image recognition, such as folk use to improve their golf swing or something like that, but I was afraid of the "real time'' nature needed to give an artificial instrument the feel of a live instrument.