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Guitarists, your Days are Numbered
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Thu Jul 07, 2005 10:04 PM
from the funk-machines dept.
from the funk-machines dept.
spackbace writes "Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have created a mechanical guitar playing robot, named the Crazy J. The guitar player is composed of two mechanical systems that interact to play a range of 29 musical notes. A plucking mechanism with six independently controlled picks is mounted over the body of the guitar and a fingering mechanism with an array of 23 fingertips is mounted over the first four frets of the fingerboard."
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Days are numbered? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Days are numbered? (Score:4, Funny)
I just love it when a midi player plays a piece of music note for note directly as it was written as sheet music with no interpretation because we all know that a whole note should always be played as 2 half notes.
Parent
Re:Days are numbered? (Score:3, Interesting)
No, that's just what we tell the computers what to play just like that's what we tell beginning students what to play. The only reason music students don't sound like that is because they don't yet have control of their intruments.
Fast forward a few years and suddenly the student could play that methodically, if they wanted, but by this point in time they've learned to interpret what the composer meant by the notes. The rough outline the the notes record can be filled in by common experience.
Computers are
Re:Days are numbered? (Score:3, Interesting)
You could do simple Baroque pretty easy, sounded OK, like a Casio watch I used to have. I tried to do ragtime and boy did it suck. I hacked around to get syncopation just right and I ran out of memory.
Fast forward to the Atari ST, the ones with the
It's nothing to fret about! (Score:5, Insightful)
It won't be able to compose a Layla, or anything of that caliber...it may be able to *play* Layla, but not create it.
ttyl
Farrell
guitarist, among other things...
Parent
Re:It's nothing to fret about! (Score:3, Informative)
ttyl
Farrell
Re:It's nothing to fret about! (Score:4, Informative)
Considering the timing of the Waters quote, it fits.
Parent
Nice try.. but no Hendrix (Score:5, Informative)
- String muting - a big problem here. When playing guitar you can mute the strings that you're not playing with either your left or right hand. Notice how all of the strings "ring out" after playing a note? A key change on this thing would not sound good.
- Bending - half the fun of playing the guitar is that you can bend notes. Bending and sliding is what can make a guitar 'sing' - similar to a voice.
- Tremolo - to make your playing have any sense of feeling you need to be able to tremolo a note. That means slightly varying the pitch of it. This can be done in a few different ways - none that are possible here.
- Strumming - ask it to strum a chord. It can't. Individual picks for each string is kind of cool, but won't sound any good when playing any songs recorded in the past 80 years.
- Harmonics - can it play a one?
- String selection - a good guitarist will pick particular strings for playing a particular note. These sound completely different because of a few reasons - an A on the bottom E string (fifth fret) compared with playing an A on the A string (open) will have a very different timbre. Doesn't look like that's possible here.
- Range - the guitar actually has a very large range compared to other instruments. Doesn't look like you can get past the 5th fret here.
- Legato, hammerons and pulloffs - can it 'flutter' between two notes?
All of these things are particular to an acoustic guitar. As for trying to duplicate an electric guitar with distortion - that would be freaking cool but very hard.Parent
Re:Nice try.. but no Hendrix (Score:3, Informative)
Tremolo [wikipedia.org]
Locking Tremolo [wikipedia.org]
Re:Days are numbered? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yngwie Malmsteen is a pretty mechanical guitarist, so I'd think he'd be easy to emulate - just teach it to play E harmonic minor scales in 32nd notes at 160 bpm. If the thing can play like Howlin' Wolf or David Gilmour or Frank Zappa, then I'll be impressed.
Re:Days are numbered? (Score:3, Informative)
You just need to look harder.
http://www.johnpetrucci.com/ [johnpetrucci.com] just to name one.Re:Days are numbered? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Days are numbered? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Days are numbered? (Score:3, Informative)
And some wikis to add flavor - Eric's wiki page [wikipedia.org] and Trevor's wiki page. [wikipedia.org]
Re:Days are numbered? (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you miss that whole punk thing in the 70s?
Parent
*Yawn* (Score:5, Informative)
The pneumatic piano with the drum holding four violins, in particular, was interesting, if only from a mechanical engineering perspective.
At any rate, when your gadget can move Mt. Fuji [slashdot.org], you shall have accomplished something.
I for one... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh wait.. wasn't that Jimmy Hendrix?
Re:I for one... (Score:4, Funny)
No, his brother Jimi.
Parent
Wrong one. I knew the robot. (Score:5, Interesting)
True story: While working for The Dixie Dregs and the Steve Morse Band sometime 1991-92, I did a gig at The Ranch Bowl in Omaha, Nebraska.
This venue had, as well as an "old-man bar", a rock radio station, a small rock club, and a beach volleyball court, a bowling alley on the premises.
After the gig was over we (band & crew) were invited to bowl a few games on the house. Sometime around 1:30 AM, Steve Morse (accomplished commercial pilot, virtuoso musician, genius composer, and guitar god) picked up a bowling bowl, announced that he had not bowled previously, and then attempted his first bowl.
I think he knocked over a couple of pins. As he stood there motionless, I could just see him running back the instant replay in his head.
His next turn... he threw a strike.
His next turn... another strike. All night long, strike, strike, strike.
Steve Morse is the original guitar-playing robot.
And he can kick your ass at anything. Period.
'Swelp me gawd.
Parent
Or, from a different POV (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Only until Lou Ann left (Score:3, Funny)
hmmm? (Score:4, Informative)
Can it sing? (Score:4, Funny)
I hope my wife doesn't see this... (Score:5, Funny)
there's just no way I can compete with that!
quick! post a dupe or something so she doesn't see it! =)
Just like (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not only about the music (Score:5, Insightful)
where did they get the fingertips from? (Score:5, Funny)
I suppose they ordered 23 cups of Wendy's Chili?
Is it "perfect"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Where were you 20 years ago? (Score:3, Funny)
I wish *you* had been my band teacher in 7th grade.
Perfection vs. Expression (Score:5, Insightful)
The great thing about B.B. is that while other virtuoso guitarists can play twenty notes in the time it takes him to play one, he can "say" twice as much in that one note as they can in their twenty.
It's not even about perfection vs. imperfection. You can introduce slight random imperfection (simply not hitting notes perfectly), you can introduce procedural imperfection that adds specific style (say hitting off beats slightly ahead of the beat in order to create a rock/roll feel - hmm, wonder where that name came from) - but it still doesn't capture it.
It's about expression.
It's about the guitarist who reads the audience and knows the moment when the crowd moves from listening to feeling and can smoothly transition from relatively clean notes to ones where that little extra touch is needed. Add slight vibrato to every note and it's annoying, add it to the right moments and it adds that notion of human soul. And, the thing is, it's different, every night, for the same song, depending on the audience.
It's not about playing the eight bar intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, etc... It's about responding to Jim Morrison deciding to rail on the police who beat him back stage and knowing now is the time to take that twice repeated four bar intro and keep repeating it for however long it takes him to finish. It's about knowing tonight's the last night of a tour and it's just the right time to repeat the chorus that extra few times, to extend the solo - which, on a normal night, would be pretentious and turn the crowd off.
It's about the guitarist having a bad day, feuding with the singer, whatever, and playing aggressively and capturing the audience in the tension of the moment and that dynamic.
It's all those things and so much more. Even if you have a robot that simulates human perfection/imperfection brilliantly, it doesn't express how it's feeling, it doesn't adapt to how the gig's going, it just plays the same things (with whatever generated imperfection) every night - or, potentially, improvises without any awareness of how the rest of the gig is going.
Program a robot and, sure, you can fake the technical aspects. But music's about having a "soul". Soul is all those aspects mentioned above and more - it's far more than just perfection or imperfection.
Give me the choice: A guitarist who can play Ywingie under the table, technically and it terms of number of notes played, or B.B. playing two or three perfectly expressive notes per bar and I'll take B.B. every time.
Parent
No, no, no! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No, no, no! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:No, no, no! (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
still no (Score:5, Insightful)
And In other news, still no cure for cancer.
fear not..... (Score:5, Interesting)
Never underestimate the human ear and its ability to pick (pun intended) the poser. I've heard of the obsolescence by technology of so many things musical that never really got there.
One I fondly remember was a report on the CBS Evening News, granted, it was a long time ago, but the point is valid today... They played a video clip of an orchestra playing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and asked, "What's wrong with this picture?". I remember thinking, aside from the really crappy quality of sound, hard to say. Their punchline? The music was from a synthesizer, NOT the orchestra (yawn).
This experience (for me at least) is not unique. I had to toss my "white noise" generator I used to help sleep at night... over a period of time my ears picked up the "random" pattern and it actually became an irritant, not a mask of other ambient noise.
I also own a Yamaha high-end keyboard (full 88 key, acceleration keys, 128 voice polyphonic), and it's main piano "voice" was digitally sampled from a Steinway. It sounds wonderful, but I could pick the Yamaha out of a bunch of real pianos from a mile away. The pitch was always too perfect, the decay was always to predictable, etc.
Have you ever listened to a musical recording and found the laid down "generated rhythm" track so perfect it was annoying? I have.
Technology can do some interesting things in music, none of them human. If technology is used create an instrument played by a human, that's one thing... Technology to play an instrument is quite another, and in my opinion will never approach the real thing. If you've listened a lot to classical, it's pretty easy to pick out Stern, or Perlman as the violinist on the same piece. Likewise it's pretty easy to recognize Vladimir on piano.
Re:fear not..... (Score:5, Interesting)
In effect you try to create something similar to brownian motion to the tone quality and musical execution. IE instead of set values/lengths of tones rigidly adhered to and perfection of timing you create a set of varibles that execute randomly across an acceptable range forming a HUGE range of possible combinations.
It still won't replace live musicians but it would likely go a long way to eliminating that fake perfection feel synthesized music always has.
in refference to this particular invention I found the decision to go with plucking to be an odd decision. It seems to me some kind of back and forth mechanisim utilizing an actual guitar pick would have resulted in a sound much more equivalent with something a live player would produce. Instead they wound up with what amounts to a 6 string harpsichord. A neat technical problem for applied engineering education though.
Parent
I'm not scared. (Score:5, Insightful)
The technology isn't there to match the dynamics in picking techniques and subtle stylistic interpretations.
For instance, some swing-beat pieces (in jazz band music, not just guitar music) require a little more sluggishness in the eights, to really capture the groove.
As well, there aren't effective improv algorithms yet for these mechanical beasts :)
Oh sure, its possible to program future machines to match interpretations to exact specifications, but the nuances required to program that are unfathomable when it comes to instruments such as guitars - There are so many dynamic elements to it that it just isn't feasible. Besides, people like watching guitarists as much as they like listening to them.. Thats part of why people prefer live shows to CDs - Nothing is like watching the emotive expressions of a guitar duo while they shred in harmony, knees on the ground, eyes at the sky.
Guitar: A month or so to learn, a lifetime to master.
Indian Guitarists? (Score:5, Funny)
Bending strings? (Score:3, Insightful)
Also I would like to see that thing do some Van Halen string tapping. I'll be impressed to see it play "Eruption".
Really cool.. but.. (Score:3, Insightful)
This thing addresses the wrong end of the problem.
I can _play_ reasonably proficiently. I mean, anything most people would listen to i can play without much trouble - technical profiency at guitar _playing_ is not really making anybody money right now. I mean, to a lot of people, metallica is like the end-all-be-all of fast guitar licks and "wild" guitar solos and yet i could play the overwhelming majority of that stuff after a few years of playing while i was in highschoool. There are much much better guitarists out there, who's work i cannot emulate, but honestly, there are very few guys out there where some other guy can't play his stuff perfectly.
The issue then, is not about the ability to "play", but the ability to create.
I can play just about any metallica song.. solos and all.
But i definitely can't write anything like they could. It shames me to admit that i can't even put together an original song as good as a crap band like weezer or radiohead or any of the other stuff that's passed as music in the last 15 years.
Composition is the real gem here, not technical playing ability. If you want to hear a trillion notes per second, check out the artists on the Shrapnel Records label.. nothing but guitar/keyboard maniacs (which i happen to love, but i admit it gets tiring at times
One other thing to consider - i haven't seen/heard the thing play, but something you'll hear from older guitarists is that "95% of your tone is in your finger tips, not your equipment". How effective is the robot at things like bends ? If you listen to a player like marty friedman, he really makes effective emotional use of bends that just _sound_ better than what i can do. How does a robot compare ?
"FREEBIRD!"..."I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that... (Score:3, Funny)
L.E.M.U.R. (Score:3, Interesting)
Hardest Chord Ever (Score:3, Funny)
Eh... It's neat from a robotics stand point, but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
However, I can understand why they didn't go for those extra features; they would be a bitch to design. So, kudos to them for the whole design, it looks cool, but
For that matter, people still play chess even.
Jeff
PS Sorry for the rant, it's late, I'm tired, and I'm a guitarist. Struck a nerve...
Not so fast... (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Crazy J can't bend
2. Crazy J can't slide
3. Crazy J can't palm-mute
I would like to add one more thing: if you listen to the demo songs, Lola is not played by the Crazy J itself, but you can hear an electric guitar in the back.
BUT, from engineering point of view, I do have to give credit though
Keith Richards must be turning in his grave (Score:3, Funny)
This isn't new..? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it was made by one of the Japanese tech companies. It could play some pretty complex music, including stuff humans can't play, due to it not being limited by finger length - so it could play a bass line and melody simultaneously on the same guitar (or multiple bass lines, etc).
This was like 5+ years ago. A quick google yields nothing, but I remember it well.
analog compression of music information (Score:3, Interesting)
mechanical forces which apply to the strings, when a guitarist plays it
and feed that back into Crazy J. This would allow a preservation of a
play in a very compressed way.
I heard once a public lecture of Negroponte from the MIT media lab,
where he invited the audience to think about the fact that recording
all the forces onto piano keys would allow storage or transmission of
music information in an interesting way. The play of an artist could so
be preserved efficiently. The compression effort is very expensive and
needs a lot of hardware, but the compression rate is enormous. Unlike
formats like midi, it contains all the musical interpretation
of the artist.
Having stored the play in a mechanical way could have applications. One
could try how the "pianist" or "guitarist " would play on an other
instrument, one could correct mistakes or analyze, what features make
a good pianist or guitarist. Further applications are that one could
play musical pieces on real pianos or guitars which humans are
physically incapable to play, for example by pure limitation of the
number of fingers or speed limits of the fingers.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, you can't play cock rock with a mechanical cock.
Neither have dildos (Score:5, Funny)
Parent