Author: Nathan Fuhrman | Major: Computer Science and Cybersecurity | Semester: Fall 2025

Nathan Fuhrman

My name is Nathan Fuhrman, and I am an Honors College Fellow in the College of Engineering studying Computer Science with a concentration in Cyber Security. Over the course of the Fall semester of 2025, I had the opportunity to begin working on research for my Honors Thesis under the supervision of Dr. Alejandro Martin Gomez in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Following this semester, I hope to finish work on my Honors Thesis by conducting a study in the Spring of 2026.

My research this semester has been developing an Extended Reality (XR) framework to allow users to learn and practice conducting music like a marching band drum major. The goal is to be able to study how different amounts of virtual feedback in an XR framework can influence the consistency of a user’s conducting pattern. Our expectation is to be able to show some correlation between using the framework for learning or practicing marching band conducting patterns and the consistency of participants’ conducting patterns. If that turns out to be the case, then this framework could be used to help teach students how to conduct a marching band or be used as a tool by drum majors to help them improve their conducting pattern consistency. This research topic has been a perfect mix of my two passions: computers and music.

Initially, I was really struggling to find a topic for my Honors Thesis. After hours of combing through different faculty webpages, I ended up reaching out to Dr. Martin Gomez because of an ad he had sent out to the honors computer science students. We met several times throughout my Junior year discussing some technology I would need to familiarize myself with if I wanted to pursue research in XR, such as Unity and Vuforia. Dr. Martin Gomez wanted me to find a research topic around something I enjoyed, and helped me realize that I could utilize my extensive background in music to explore possible applications. I had been interested in conducting music for years: from being a drum major for my high school marching band to even conducting a concert piece for my final high school concert. Conducting was a fascination that had taken me by storm, but one thing had always bothered me: I found it somewhat difficult to practice conducting on my own. After some consideration, I decided I wanted to see what kinds of research there was around music and XR, with the hopes of finding some research relating to conducting.

During my literature review, I found several papers around incorporating XR into music education, such as using a virtual reality (VR) app to help students visualize the concept of harmony or a VR exercise to help conducting students work on making eye contact with different sections of a band. Those papers helped me decide that I wanted to try developing a framework that can help someone learn or practice conducting music, as I really empathized with conducting students trying to practice conducting skills on their own. So, I began exploring different types of applications of XR technology and conducting research.

I came across two really interesting papers that involved tracking conducting patterns. The first focused on seeing how different extraneous body movements affected the consistency of a conducting pattern. The second explained how a museum attraction was able to make someone feel like they were conducting an orchestra by controlling the speed of a recording based on their hand movements. While these papers were really interesting, I was still struggling to focus on a specific aspect of conducting that I could help improve with an XR framework.

My mentor and I discussed a few possibilities, but we decided it would be best to get some feedback from some colleagues of mine who were more knowledgeable with conducting: Director of the Razorback Marching Band (RMB), Chase Jones, and the Head Drum Major of the RMB, Juan Ramos. The four of us met together to discuss what I had been working on and to see if they had any ideas on what aspects of conducting, I could focus on that would be beneficial to people learning to conduct like a drum major. We had a really intellectual conversation, and they gave me several ideas to explore, including what I ended up deciding would be the most impactful: developing an XR framework to help a user learn or practice conducting in a marching band style by using live virtual feedback from an XR headset. I decided on this topic because marching band drum majors change every year, with most only spending 1-2 years in the position before they graduate. A large part of a drum major’s role is conducting the band, and for ensembles like the RMB that have 4 drum majors, they need to have consistent and clear conducting patterns to effectively convey tempo and style to the band. After our conversation, I began developing an XR framework in Unity (a gaming engine) for a Meta Quest 3 (a mixed reality headset). This framework focuses on helping show conducting pattern consistency by giving the user an example pattern that appears in front of them in XR so they can follow it to see how their conducting pattern deviates over time.

My plan for the future is to finish development of this framework in the Spring so that my mentor and I can run a study to investigate the effectiveness of the framework and gather some data that I can use to finish writing my Honors Thesis. While this research has been an adventure to work on, I will be returning to my hometown of Fort Smith, AR, after graduation to work at ArcBest Technologies as a Software Engineer. Until then, however, I am excited to continue my research and keep working to integrate my fascination around conducting with the evolving world of XR.