FretFlow: Adaptive Haptics for Rhythm and Articulation in Guitar Learning

Rhythm and articulation are essential for expressive guitar performance. Existing tools provide basic beat cues, whereas beginners often struggle to align with these cues when playing complex techniques, such as strumming and muting. Informed by a formative study with five instructors and grounded in embodied learning theories, we present FretFlow, a haptic vest-based tool that simulates common instructional practices to guide learners through physical CHI '26, April 13-17, 2026, Barcelona, Spain Shu et al.

interactions like tapping. The key to FretFlow is its design space that maps rhythmic and articulation patterns in various playing techniques to distinct haptic patterns, enabling authoring of haptic scores. FretFlow further dynamically adapts haptic intensity based on learners' real-time performance accuracy, accompanied by multimodal guidance across haptic, visual, and audio channels. We iteratively refined haptic designs across two rounds with 46 participants, followed by a two-week user study with 20 beginners. Results show that FretFlow improves learners' rhythmic accuracy and expressive performance.