Slashdot Mirror
ASIMO to Conduct Symphony Orchestra
DeviceGuru writes to mention that Honda's ASIMO robot will apparently be leading the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in a performance of "Impossible Dream" from the conductors podium. Along with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the mechanical marvel will hopefully have a better performance than some of the earlier public appearances. "Honda says it is giving the Detroit Symphony Orchestra a gift of more than $1 million to create The Power of Dreams Music Education Fund. The fund is intended to help the Detroit Public Schools, which has suffered from severe cost constraints that have hurt the district's ability to provide music education, offer students the opportunity to learn to play instruments, read music, and participate in bands or orchestras."
It's a shame that the Detroit public school system is in such a dire state that it has to stoop to entertaining Honda'a whims in order to gain funding. This harks back to the old days of wealthy patrons supporting the arts. Though in this case, it's a large Japanese corporation rather than individual aristocrats.
Phoenix, Boston, Little Rock, see a pattern?
Having known a few professional orchestral musicians in my time, I can tell you that they will be absolutely fucking delighted at having to play with a robot.
When it comes to contemporary repertoire, the more "robotic" the conductor, the better the performance. This is because usually composers try to write exactly how their music should sound, extending the notation if necessary, instead of leaving it up to the judgement of the conductor, who might come up with something completely different. In Per Norgard's Symphony No. 3 , for instance, the whole effect of the music is based on as close an adherence to the golden section as is humanly possible by the performers, and a conductor who plays what he sees without adding in any extraneous phrasing is desirable. In Elliott Carter's mature music, balancing all the tempos properly is extremely difficult for a human conductor.
I don't foresee ASIMO replacing human conductors permanently, but I suspect that any performance he conducted of modern works would sound better than those by conductors trained like Bernstein or Karajan, who tried to make the music fit their own universal style instead of following the wishes of the composer.
I'd be willing to listen to robots play a kazoo arrangement of "Feelings" five times. Without earplugs!
Invenio via vel creo
- Open the pod bay doors ASIMO!
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
So what? You could get any robot with articulated "arms" with servomotors to conduct an orchestra.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
"Play, my little humans, play! Muah ha ha haaa!"
That's not Picasso, that's Kandinsky!
They should have a contest to come up with a name for the ASIMO conductor...
My vote? MetroGnome? !!!
Consider how orchestral musicians are hired: the best possible soloist (often the most bombastic) is auditioned, but expected to fit in and know their place once hired.
The role of the conductor is as much political--the tamer of egos--as it is musical. How soon ASIMO will take over these duties I cannot say.
Personally, the idea of an orchestra, with so many people trying to do the same thing at the same time, might as well be replaced with robots. A small ensemble where the musicians have room to improvise and explore their personal creativity is much more interesting to me.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
Does ASIMO have directional hearing because that is one of the most important skills of a conductor. This enables them to essentially conduct the orchestra. If ASIMO has this capability then it wont be long till your wive/ girlfriend runs off with one of these bots.
"Drawing closer to world domination, keystroke by keystroke."
...a better performance than...
This is not a turnip.
what about AWESOME-O ?
I for one welcome our symphony conducting robot overlords!
...inherent in the very idea that a Japanese robot from a Japanese car company will be leading an orchestra in the center of what used to be America's car manufacturing empire?
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
How was this greenlit?
I wouldn't donate money to Detroit Public Schools unless it was with the stipulation that the entire administration be replaced. DPS's financial problems are caused by horrible mismanagement of funds, not because there wasn't enough money to begin with. I wouldn't be suprised if none of that money ends up going to music education....
I for one welcome our new robotic conductor overlords.
I was wearing this shirt while reading this. (Seriously!) http://www.randomshirts.com/store/product.php?productid=16354&cat=249&page=1
Perhaps if Detroit wasn't run by a corrupt mayor it's public schools system would be in better shape. Why do African Americans refuse to hold their elected officials accountable when they have clearly committed serious crimes? Marion Barry, William Jefferson, Kwame Kilpatrick and the list goes on. It's a real problem in Detroit going back to the Coleman Young days. Detroit voters would rather stick it to the suburbs by rallying around whichever black candidate paints the other black candidate as being white and in the end the only thing they end up sticking it to is themselves.
Don't believe me? Check out Kwame's State of the City speech and then try and tell me that he isn't trying to rally ignorant African American voters to his side by placing the race card. Read the text messages between himself and the women he was cheating with his wife on. The only person calling Kwame a "nigga" was his mistress.
Because material that can better be directed and performed by robots, should be performed by robots. When it comes to contemporary repertoire, the more "robotic" the conductor, the better the performance. This is because usually composers try to write exactly how their music should sound, extending the notation if necessary, instead of leaving it up to the judgement of the conductor, who might come up with something completely different. I can imagine the micromanagement - "trumpets with Schilke 14A4A mouthpiece" and "cellos with Appaloosa-hair bows, downstrokes to be executed 3 inches from the bridge and upstrokes 2 and 2/3 inches to rehearsal letter seven, then switch to Cleveland Bay bows and the metric system."
Husa with a 'tude!
If this is how they compose, they should give up on people entirely and start using AU & VST softsynths. They can make their own softsynths and control every blessed sample.
Instead of spending so much effort trying to make humans sound like robots, they could spend it making robots sound more human -- if this is why they bother with humans at all. I suspect these composers have severe control freak issues heavily laced with masochism, and removing the humans would remove their reason for composing.
I know, I'm a relict with a soft spot for Solti. Solti couldn't even control his principal trumpet player! It's the interaction that makes it rock.
----
My proggy compositions.
My modern softsynths.
Tom Gersic's Giant Free Audio Plug-In Site.
KVR Audio Plug-In Clearinghouse.
BTW, I've used a bored-out 14A4A while being conducted by Husa (the mouthpiece choice was my own). I know nothing about which horses make good bow hair and wood glue.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged tech demo.
I'd be a lot more enthusiastic about the Asimo if you could actually buy one and see it execute _your_ program, or take your direction. As it is, it's essentially a black box. With all that implies. For all we know, somewhere behind the stage some real guy with a wiimote could do the conducting, and the robot could be just a remotely controlled box.
We've never seen it do anything except in controlled, pre-prepared settings.
E.g., ok, it can walk around corners and up stairs. Can it still do it if we move the corners or the stairs? What about if I bring my own stairs? E.g., so one can move a cart and the other can take a cup from the cart. Does it still work if I come as a human and move the cart 3ft to the side from where the first robot left it? What if I move the tables around? Turning around, bowing and walking off the stage isn't much different. Can it still do it, if you rearrange that setup at all?
There are so many ways one could cheat those demos, it's not even funny. E.g., for all we know, it could just be programmed exactly where to put each foot, in X, Y, Z coordinates, and fly off the handle if the stairs don't match those. Or it could have an RFID chip in each place where it must place the foot, and essentially just home in on those with each foot. Etc.
Essentially we don't really _know_ what it does, except for being a high-tech publicity stunt for Honda. It could be the most advanced robot in the world, or it could be the hoax of the century, or something in between. We don't know.
So basically I'll wait until I see one perform in an uncontrolled environment, before getting all "OMG! Asimo!" fanboy. Until then, heck, the Roomba is more exciting. At least you can see for yourself what it does when you stand in its way.
So until I see it do stuff outside
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
So what? A remote-control conductor. The minimum technology to do that has been around since at least the early 1800s, and probably long before then. Now, if they could PROGRAM it to conduct the orchestra, all on its own, start to finish, then I would be impressed.
That's one expensive metronome.
>It sounds like you've never sat in an orchestra. The conductor is more than basic timekeeping at all times.
/were/ was a metronome.
>If this was not the case, why aren't all orchestras just using a metronome at their concerts?
>My prediction is that this performance will be under par for the orchestra. It will sound mechanical.
I played in a band through all of my school years until college.
While the director was essential during practice, during performance, all they
When I sang with a choral group, we did not have a director.
Good performers know the music and are in tune with one another. No metronome needed, human or otherwise.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
That's not really how orchestral musicians are hired. But you're right, I guess this whole "orchestra" thing will never work out, what with the hopelessness of us all "trying to do the same thing at the same time".
Conducting is about 1% physical the rest is musicianship. Gestures are used because they are silent. And during the performance, what happens next is based mostly on what has happened up until that moment.
ASIMO knows only gestures. It knows nothing of the performance or whether the musicians are even playing, so why not make it funny to the audience?
Son, someday all this will belong to your ex-wife.
...so a robot will pretend to be a conductor? I bet it is nothing more than a fancy metronome - but most orchestra do know how to follow the 1st chair violist - for example with a guest conductor is there who does not know diddly-squat.
Big Fat Hairy deal. Will it really know how to quiet the trombones when they are too loud or get the cellos to play more staccto when they are dragging?
Conduction is done during rehearsals, there the different sections of the orchestra fine tune how the piece of music will be interpreted and later on all the sections of the orchestra are "stitched" together in order to deliver a performance of the work in question.
To direct an orchestra you require of many intellectual attributes that currently are not the grasp of any robot, no matter how advanced.
In any orchestra the director can safely take a sit during the performance and the music would flow flawlessly.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.