DailyDirt: Making Robot Musicians

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Tue, Mar 25th 2014 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Maybe the music industry isn't really worried about evil robots killing off music anymore, but as more and more technology gets into the field of music, there could be a new wave of neo-Luddite musicians. Software can compose music, and robots can play some musical instruments. What's left for humans to do? Check out some of these robot musicians, and you'll see why human musicians aren't that worried about losing their jobs to robots any time soon.

Jason Barnes is a cyborg drummer with a robotic drumming prosthesis that lets Barnes play with three drumsticks. The third drumstick is actually autonomous and improvises based on what it senses Barnes is doing with his manually-controlled sticks. [url]
Japanese roboticists have created a band of machines, including a guitarist with 78 fingers and a drummer with 22 arms. The Z-Machines band will release 5 songs written specifically for these robots, playing music that would be somewhat difficult for a human band to copy. [url]
Compressorhead is another robot band. It's best known for performing a cover of Ace of Spades. [url]
An improvising robotic marimba player named Shimon can jam with human musicians. This four-armed robot looks like it would fit right into a Star Wars cantina. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: algorithms, autonomous drummer, compressorhead, cyborg, jason barnes, music, musicians, robots, shimon, squarepusher, z-machines

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Ole Juul (profile), 25 Mar 2014 @ 5:31pm

Human element
Of course "music" can have different meanings to different people. However, one of the things which has traditionally been core to the concept is the human element. By definition, a machine can't do that part.

As a mental exercise, I suggest that one imagines using robots to run the 100 meter dash. There is indeed some satisfaction in racing machines, but we generally watch Olympic events specifically for the human content. This concept holds just as much (perhaps even more) with amateur and children's sports and games.
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Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 25 Mar 2014 @ 5:44pm

I was waiting for someone to take Animusic and turn it into real life.
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That One Guy (profile), 25 Mar 2014 @ 7:56pm

Re: Human element
Actually when you think of it, a race like that would still have the human element, it's just the 'muscle' on display wouldn't be the legs, but rather the brains, a test of who was able to come up with the best design.
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That One Guy (profile), 25 Mar 2014 @ 7:59pm

Re:
Nice, that was one of the first things I thought of when I read the article as well, and I agree, turning one of those animations into a real life thing would be awesome, though probably just a wee bit beyond current technological capabilities without spending a massive amount of money.
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That One Guy (profile), 25 Mar 2014 @ 8:09pm

Spoke too soon it seems
Looks like a company actually has done something like that as a tech demo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z5Z5zo1Rc4
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Ninja (profile), 26 Mar 2014 @ 3:10am

The Z-Machines band will release 5 songs written specifically for these robots, playing music that would be somewhat difficult for a human band to copy.

Given enough humans it wouldn't be hard at all ;)
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Mar 2014 @ 7:25am

If they writing music, what are the copyright implications? Does the programmer get the rights to everything they generate?
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Udom (profile), 26 Mar 2014 @ 11:32am

Music
Millions of people around the world pound away at keyboards, hitting all the right notes without ever producing any music. Those who hear only notes and suppose that to be music are to be pitied.
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btrussell (profile), 26 Mar 2014 @ 7:20pm

I could beat my drum about playing with three sticks, but, I'll just say, if I had two more sticks, my pants would fit like a glove.
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