# Classroom Lab 2: Record Spatial Movement With Your Hands and Body

> Hands-on lab: record spatial audio movement with your webcam using hand gestures or body styles like Conductor and Head Lead. Video stays on device.

Web page: https://spatial9.ai/blog/academy-lab-motion-capture-hands-body
Author: Spatial9 Team
Published: 2026-10-16. Updated: 2026-10-16.

## Key takeaways
- Hand Gesture tracks your palm centre for left, right, up, down, near and far, with an open palm to start and a fist to stop.
- Body Movement offers four styles: Conductor, Steering Wheel, Body Sway and Head Lead, the last one ideal when seated.
- A take lasts up to 30 seconds, is sampled every 0.05 seconds and pauses automatically if tracking is lost for more than 0.35 seconds.
- Your video is processed on your device and never uploaded or saved; only the movement path is kept.

In this lesson: You will turn your webcam into a spatial panner. You will record a movement with one hand, then with your whole body in four styles, review the take, tidy it up and apply it to an Echoes stem. Your video stays on your device the whole time.

Some movements are hard to describe and easy to perform. Think of a conductor bringing the strings forward, or a dancer sweeping an arm overhead. In Movement Design you chose motion from a library. In this lab you will draw it yourself, in real time, with your hands and body.

The idea is old. Composers and researchers have long explored gesture as a musical controller, from the theremin to hyperinstruments. What is new is that you need nothing but a laptop camera.


## What you will learn

- How to open the motion capture tools from the Movement Library.
- How hand tracking maps your palm to left/right, up/down and near/far.
- Four body capture styles and which musical jobs suit each one.
- How the recorder samples, smooths and pauses a take.
- How to review, tidy, retake and apply a movement.
- Why your video never leaves your device.

The rest of this lesson is free with a Spatial9 account: https://spatial9.ai/blog/academy-lab-motion-capture-hands-body