Slashdot Mirror
The First Robotic Musician
eldavojohn writes, "A new robot named Haile (pronounced hi-lee), which 'listens' to what musicians are playing and play along with them, has been developed at the [corrected] Georgia Institute of Technology. There are some videos at the GATech site. From the article: "If the musicians change the beat or rhythm, Haile is right there with them. 'With Haile there are two levels of musical knowledge... The basic level is to teach it to learn to identify music, to imitate,' Weinberg said. 'The higher level is stability of rhythm, to be able to distinguish between similar rhythms. In essence, Haile has the ability to recognize if a rhythm is more chaotic or stable, and can adjust its playing accordingly.' I don't know about the rest of Slashdot, but I can't wait for the day when I have my very own Robo Puente to play along with."
Jesus, is is that hard to get the university right? Not only is UGA not the same as GA Tech, they are bitter rivals.
This is old news.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_Aiken
Crazy whatr they can do now....
..before computer generated music becomes better than anything that could possibly be created by a person?
Big "O"'s Maestro.
We'll know robots are truly evolved when they build their own museum :)
What did you eat today? http://www.atetoday.com/
Bitter, instate rivals... get those confused in the wrong company in this town, and you'll regret it :)
Randy Farmer
Atlanta, GA
I smell protests from the drummer and bass guitar unions. First the industrial revolution replaced workers with robots, now the entertainment industry is being targetted.
Wait, if the robotic drummer/bass guitar player invents a new riff, who takes the royalties? Maybe it could use the money for new servo motors or a replacement oil pan.
Task Mangler
I think we had one of those when I was a kid, though it was usually out of tune and you had to feed it Kibbles 'n Bits.
It's a percussionist, most of them are pretty robotic anyway.
"And for our next robot".... "drumroll please"....
Have you read my journal today?
after the lead singer thought he was a fish and the drummer went of to live on an island with a rock as a friend.
This space for rent
Can they show up to practice drunk and/or stoned? Do their girlfriends get jealous of the other musicians' girlfriends and start drama for no reason? Do they forget spare strings at the gig and have to borrow a bass from the other band? Do they need a place to crash one night and you come to find three months later that they still haven't left?
They can't be REAL musician robots until those conditions can be fulfilled.
Anyone else get forced into the creepy dark room at Chuck E. Cheese's as a kid?
That robotic band would still scare the bejesus out of me today. Hope GATech has improved on the technology a bit.
who'd like to take two of these things, put them in the same room, start to play something, then stop and see how the two work off eachother?
Of course, musical accompaniment systems have been around since the 80's and earlier. It's been a research topic in artificial intelligence nearly since its inception!
:) And the physical design is quite beautiful for a drum-playing robot.
Robert Rowe published a book on the topic in 1992, on his Cypher system. Here's another good article on the topic by Chris Dobrian. For an open-source system, check out Bob van der Poel's MMA.
Additionally, there's been plenty of work done on robotics for playing instruments, particularly for percussion.
So, admittedly, this is the first time I've personally heard of a project combining the two, so I'll give it that credit for innovation. But I'd be sorta surprised if it hasn't been done previously. When you think about it... all these musical accompaniment systems react in real-time to MIDI input. Simply make a couple of motors respond to MMA's ouptut, for example, adjust timing according to latency and inertia, and you could probably have this project done in a few days.
Not to play it down, I always love to see fun projects like this..
But "first".. well, give credit where it's due. I think the summary is over-reacting. (I scanned the article.. don't believe it makes any such claims.)
Are we not men? We are Devo!
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
WABOT-2 could interpret human singers and organ players back in 1985. Hardly the first musical robot:
t ml
http://www.humanoid.waseda.ac.jp/booklet/kato02.h
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
It's the first robot that hangs out with a bunch of musicians.
I am always confusing robotized with fossilized.
Sorry.
Still, someday every band will be robotic...
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I'll have to go spin up my trusty Media Lab laserdisc, but I recall Barry Vercoe demo-ing this or something very much like it. They had a virtual performer (piano, IIRC) that could follow / learn / accompany live individual human performer (violin, again IIRC) and cope with changes in phrasing. So this would date to when laserdiscs were cool. Of course there was probably a Cray at the other end of a telltale cable, but hey.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
So who is the RIAA going to sue? They have to sue someone. After all, that's all they do nowdays since the equalization of the vinyl records is no longer as profitable as extortion. (and because there aren't as many gold records to award as in previous years).
Any time a robot plays something, it is going to sound like something that the RIAA holds 'rights' to. So the robot is 'infringing' on 'their' copyrights. But, uh, sueing a robot is hard. They don't respond to threats. They ignore injunctions. Robots don't give a shit about human law, man, they just wanna rock'n'roll.
So are they going after the programmer?
"Your Honor, Let it be known that after 2.345 hours of playing a 130 beats per minute tempo, in the key of G#, if the human misses the beat by 0.256 seconds, the robot under inditment will consistently and 'knowingly' play the first three notes of "Free Bird". This is a willfull violation of copyright. We want $100,000,000,000.00; payable in monthly installments."
But the great thing about robots is no only can they now play music, but, with a little tweaking, they can also tear the fingers and toes off of entertainment lawyers. Accidently, of course, but AI routines can get a little unpredictable when clogged with human legal chaos. Shit happens.
Personally, when I want to play along with a machine I use a Zoom 900x series guitar effects DSP with the early 1970's Rolling Stones fed into the analog mix channel. Mix your guitar with lots of reverb, overdrive, a touch of delay, and a dollop of attitude.
When you get a robot to do what Keith Richards does, let me know.
We're charging our battery And now we're full of energy We are the robots We are the robots ....
We're functioning automatic
And we are dancing mechanic
We are the robots
We are the robots ....
How does the robot analyze what's being played? Are all the musicians playing instruments hooked up to a MIDI interface? If not,it's pretty amazing that he can analyze the pure sound. It would be pretty neat to have two of these robots play together. I suppose you'd have to start things off with a few notes from one of them, but it would be interesting to hear after that.
People want to see people playing instruments - we can hear a synthesizer anywhere... chances are about 10% of the people who read this will use some sort of synthesizer along with their guitar playing or whatever. I really don't feel the need to say more...
http://www.guitar9.com/guitarmusic9/giantrobot.htm l/
I'll play it some Autechre.
Task Mangler
What about Phil Collins?!
Me play Drums! Me offended!!
Yeah right!
If you're not wasted, the day is.
U[sic]GA couldn't even come close to accomplishing this. Nice try, OP.
Care about privacy? Read this!
What a waste of time and cash. If this is about machine learning, this guy is years behind. If this is about a computer playing drums, just buy a drum machine from Yamaha and be happy. The most impressive piece of technology in these video clips is that big Apple monitor on this dude's desk. As to a machine playing drums, I've seen one in a museum. It was made in 1800s and will give this computerized plywood wonder a run for its money.
I've located their inspiration.
I, for one, welcome our new robot musicians.
The RIAA is training an army of robots to take over the world since they lost the war with the internet! Bastards!
Great Intellect...
a glorified metronome that can't keep time... just like our current drummer...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
For a really nifty AI drummer, see Jamstix. It is a VST plugin that listens to what you play (either audio or MIDI input), and plays drums along with you.
It is incredible fun to play guitar with -- rock, jazz, blues stuff for me -- and the demos and songs that people have created with it are impressive. Rather than playing unlike a human, it has algorithms to mimic a human drummer's limb movements and such. The sounds and rhythms are all tweakable -- you can describe what you want, and leave the actual playing and variances to Jamstix.
Very cool stuff IMHO, and highly recommended for any musician out there.
2. he doesn't show up an hour late for practice, completely drunk.
3. he doesn't ask stupid questions when the rest of the band gets into strategy and show planning.
4. he won't eat all th efood i nthe fridge at the band house.
5. he won't choke to death on someone else's vomit.
But if he is using Sony batteries, he might spontaneously combust...
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Never saw the sun shinin' so bright Never saw things goin' so right (Cmdr. Data, Encounter at Farpoint Captain Picard and B4, ST: Nemesis)
I do believe they're using Max/MSP for the programming.
I for one welcome our new robotic musician overlords.
...she's been on One tree hill for years now.
Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.
Muse all you like about what a robot can be considered as being. But a drummer is not a musician.
;)
Because you can - or because you should?
"Here's a question: what happens when you start jamming with two of these robots, and then you stop playing? Do they just duet until you unplug one of them or what?"
Here's an idea!
You should give one of them a guitar, and the other one a banjo!
Then start playing C C F C and add a bit of yankee doodley into the mix...
...for a long time? What about street organs? And what about instruments like the Hupfeld Phonoliszt Violina Orchestrion? This apparatus uses some mechanism to play violins. And that is almost 100 years old and was at that time regarded as the 7th World Wonder.
To repeat what others have said, requires education, to challenge it , requires brains.
To my best understanding it seems like a mixup between argentine comedian/actor "Rolo Puente" and musician "Tito Puente"... but that would be a mistake only an argentinian would make. Is there some other explanation for the pun?
As a Slashdot discussion grows longer, the probability of an analogy involving cars approaches one.
I hate to break it to you, but there already are robotic musicians. The County Bear Jamboree. Those robots have been pickin and a grinnin for years!
Anyone else remember the robot hand keyboardist that flipped off Steve Gutenberg in the 1980s?
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Now the robot can be the un-cool member of the band!
Jesus, is is that hard to get the university right? Not only is UGA not the same as GA Tech, they are bitter rivals.
At least it's in the right country!
If you read the fortune file, an entire series of quotes are misattributed.
The professors that are quoted as being from the "University of Washington" (USA) are really from the "University of Waterloo" (in Canada). Someone assumed there was only one UW in the world, and didn't bother to even check the online faculty listings to see if they matched the people quoted.
At least they got the continent right, so I guess I shouldn't complain...
This robot follows a rhythm section - and not much else. It still requires the human mind to lead it. It still requires the human mind to originate the rhythm or the music.
Most if not all musical AI experiments involve a robot using a preprogrammed piece of music. Human composers create the music and/or arrangement.
Humans create music when their emotions respond to life events. Blues music was an outlet for the oppressed or the broken hearted. Most popular music evolved from rebellious adolescents. Classical music evolved from highly intelligent minds.
Many original compositions are derivatives of music that composers have acquiesced into their conscious or their sub-conscious. Inspiration can be totally spontaneous, and can pop into your mind at any time without any stimulus. In your car. At work. At recreation. Even while sleeping. Ed King of Lynyrd Skynyrd wrote "Sweet Home Alabama" in his sleep - the song came to him in a dream, and he immediately woke up and wrote it down. That happens to a lot of composers.
Every style of music and every composition you can name has evolved from human emotions. AI still has to advance to teach robots to respond to emotions and to have spontaneous inspiration. That is the stimulus for them to lead, not follow. Until we accomplish that milestone, AI has a long way to go.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
This is certainly not the first. The CNN article even mentions LEMUR, who made GuitarBot years ago (~2003 from memory, their site doesn't say). In addition to performing many pieces composed for it, GuitarBot has also been controlled by interactive software. There were a few notable performances with violinist Mari Kimura in 2003, a few months after it debuted. Interactivity wasn't its specialty, but it's been done.
Still, though, Haile this is a neat thing. You could have it done in a few days - but not the nifty laser-cut wood!
Seriously in my opinion, the day a robot, an animal or whatever can intentionally play music, it's not a robot anymore but a human being. Can anyone imagine a robot Glenn Gould ? a robot Debussy ? a robot Ali Farka Touré ? a robot Duke Ellington ? and then not give them full human rights ? And does this robot run on booze ? I think not !
Once the RIAA realizes that they won't have to pay these things any royalties, cybersupergroups will be the order of the day...
so technically this thing is able to reproduce any song it hears, right?
just wait until the RIAA finds out... not even bill gates will be able afford one of them
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
...until they make one that looks like the Corrs...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
it will learn to improvise off others melodies, leading to it being classified as one of those "crazy" jazz musicians and anyone who's ever lifted a soldering gun will be vilified in a movie called "Resistor Madness"
When you get a robot to do what Keith Richards does, let me know.
I think I can build a coconut-harvesting robot that falls out of trees, are you interested?
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.