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Toyota Robot Violinist Wows At Shanghai Expo
kkleiner writes "The Shanghai World Expo got a special treat this past week in the Japanese pavilion, when Toyota's famed violin-playing robot thrilled the crowd with a rendition of the Chinese folk song Mo Li Hua (jasmine flower). The bipedal artificial violinist hasn't been seen much since its debut back in 2007. Now we have footage of the Toyota bot playing Mo Li Hua in Shanghai as well as its original rendition of Pomp and Circumstance from 2007."
That robots can do very gentle moves is already known and not really that revolutionary. We have had machines that produce complex or fragile products for a long time.
What a robot/android needs to be capable of is to do these actions on its own, in the right circumstance and adjusted to the environment.
So, can this robot be programmed to perform an X amount of moves that result in a musical performance (an animatronic) or can it be fed a piece of music and then play it on its own? Can it be told to go to room X and perform for patient Y the music that patient requests?
Animatronics have long been capable of producing very life like results, but nobody is about to suggest that Jim Henson/ILM are the future of robots/androids.
Yes, for a while these kind of performances served a purpose as it was very hard for early robotics to produce gentle movements. But we have solved the problem of the robot arm not crushing a human being, the AI element is what is lacking. We have the capacity to have a robot pick up an egg, but no robot so far can do it on its own so far.
Nice performance, but I like to know how much of it is a robot, and how much a animatronic. Anyone got the answer?
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I'm not a musician of any kind so please excuse my ignorance, but what exactly is "soul" in this context? I've heard it mentioned numerous times, but never really defined. Does the music have no soul because it is technically accurate, or is that just a side note? Is a certain amount of carefully planned imperfection needed? Couldn't you program such imperfection into this robot?
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
"Soul" is the minor imperfections that give music character and make the same piece unique from one musician to another. As an example: One of the tricks of using digital drums and making them sound like someone is sitting at a drum set is to mess with the quantizing a bit, randomize the beats by a measure of just a few microseconds so they are in time, but not PERFECT time. You might even put in very tiny errors that don't distract from the rhythm. No real drummer is "perfect", and drums that are perfect sound fake and mechanical, even if the tones are perfectly sampled.
Same with any other instrument, but more so as you not only vary the execution of each note in a micro level, but also the dynamics (how loud, how soft a note is). Good violin playing will be more dynamic, with musician playing more aggressive in "busy" parts, and playing with a lighter touch in other places. It varies more than just the overall volume level, as playing harder and more aggressive on strings changes the entire tonal characteristics (ie: slightly more higher pitched harmonics for starters.) There was other things missing, such as no vibrato in any of the sustained notes (vibrating slightly up and down in pitch on a sustained note to give it depth).
I was a musician for most of my life, playing primarily blues guitar, and while I can *show* you easily, I'm not the best at explaining it. Hope this helps answer a very valid question.
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When it can play Flight of the Bumblebee, better than Itzhak Perlman and/or Joshua Bell, then I'll take notice...
Or better still, when it can have new music 'downloaded' into it and interpreted based upon previous styles (such as baroque style)...
and a robot RIAA