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Musical Robots Invade Juilliard
roboRob writes "RoboRecital, a recent concert at the Juilliard School, featured four robot performers: GuitarBot, a self-playing guitar; an automated fifty-seven rank pipe organ; a Yamaha Disklavier, a modern player piano; and ModBots, a collection of robotic percussion instruments. This New York Times article and it this Juilliard Journal article discuss it." This beats the band-in-a-box automaton at Wall Drug by a fair stretch.
Since the player piano was invented in 1863, it's curious to be so interested in a robotic guitar in 2005. :)
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q: How does a robot get to carnagie hall?
A: Assembly, assembly, assembly.
'At these times of special celebration a choir of over two million robots sing the company song "Share and Enjoy". Unfortunately - again - another of the computing errors for which the company is justly famous means that the robot's voices are exactly a flattened fifth out of tune and the result sounds something like this, only slightly worse.'
Instruments played by machine are hardly new. More impresive than a robot that plays guitar, a robot that plays piano, or "a collection of robotic percussion instruments" would be a robot that plays "a piano, two ranks of organ pipes (flute and violin), mandolin, snare drum, bass drum, timpani, cymbal, and triangle." Now that would be really impressive, especially since you would have to travel all the way to The National Music Museum" Vermillion, South Dakota to see one that was made in 1913! The machine is called an "Orchestrion" and they were common in the early part of the last century, as the musical accompaniment to a ride on a merry-go-round.