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.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

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

9 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

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.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- 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.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 25 Mar 2014 @ 5:44pm

I was waiting for someone to take Animusic and turn it into real life.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- 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.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- 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
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
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 ;)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
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?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
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.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
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.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]