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Clarinet Wins Robotic Orchestra Competition

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Fri Jun 20, 2008 04:24 PM
from the long-ways-from-virtuoso-still dept.
Robotics Technology
Sasha writes "The Australian designed robotic clarinet beat out Dutch and Finnish entries this year at the robotic orchestra competition. The researchers don't expect to replace human musicians, but are instead interested in what makes the difference between playing music well and playing music poorly. There is also a video available of the performance."
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Submission: Clarinet wins robotic orchestra competition by Anonymous Coward
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  • Has to be said (Score:5, Funny)

    by dave_the_dodo (974542) on Friday June 20 2008, @04:27PM (#23879365) Journal
    I, for one, welcome our new clarinet playing overlords.

    • Re:Has to be said (Score:5, Insightful)

      by negRo_slim (636783) on Friday June 20 2008, @04:38PM (#23879515) Homepage
      I, for one, will continue to enjoy the imperfections introduced by humans when playing instruments. I find artificially generated music (I'm looking at you techno) to sound rather bland and boring. But then again different strokes fo different folks!

      • The runner-up (Score:5, Interesting)

        by janek78 (861508) on Friday June 20 2008, @04:42PM (#23879557) Homepage
        A video of the second place winning guitar picking robot [teamdare.mine.nu] from the Netherlands. Sounds good to me. :)

      • Re:Has to be said (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 20 2008, @04:46PM (#23879615)

        Aah, but what you failed to mention is that those are not imperfections at all but rather emphasis and meaning. Why should sustained notes not change pitch, what's wrong with a little unexpected (but not unwelcome) syncopation? Nothing. That's humanity creating music.
         
        On the other hand, having the ability to have an infinite sustained note or a perfect beat or pitch is invaluable in creating music, like techno, even if you intend on changing the beat and whatnot.

      • Re:Has to be said (Score:5, Interesting)

        by againjj (1132651) on Friday June 20 2008, @04:48PM (#23879641)
        Which actually is (part of) the point of John Cage's 4'33" [wikipedia.org]. Basically, music is more that what is written on the sheet, it is also everything else's impact on the performance of what is written.

          • Except that 4'33" isn't silence. It's just the nuances outside of the notes.

            It is a live performance of a score that contains no notes.

            Take a live performance of an orchestra, with all the quiet breathing noises, shoe shuffling and so forth, and then remove all the notes of the performance.

          • Cage was both quite famous and well-to-do long before 4'33". He was, during his time, one of the foremost composers of the American avant-garde.

            • He would have to be, for if someone who wasn't already famous tried to do that, they would be ridiculed rather than taken seriously.

      • Do you dislike electric guitar?

        Where does the line between twiddling the knobs on an amplifier and twiddling the knobs on a synthesizer get drawn?

        • Re:Has to be said (Score:4, Insightful)

          by JCSoRocks (1142053) on Friday June 20 2008, @05:11PM (#23879929)
          I think he was referring to drum machine type music. Stuff like FL Studio where you're tracking the song out and the entire thing is all perfectly timed using identical sounds. In other words - it's created by a person but essentially being played with machine-like precision.

      • Re:Has to be said (Score:4, Insightful)

        by pjt33 (739471) on Friday June 20 2008, @05:45PM (#23880263)
        "Played by a robot" doesn't mean "robotic" in the sense of "the same every time". It would be perfectly possible to add e.g. normally distributed variation in hold time of a note. There could well be a psychology research grant waiting to be filed to investigate whether it's possible to generate imperfect music in such a way that even "experts" (broadsheet critics, for example) can't distinguish between the computer and a human playing the same piece.

      • I, for one, will continue to enjoy the imperfections introduced by humans when playing instruments.
        No reason those can't be simulated as well.

      • Different strokes [mcgill.ca], indeed.

      • the imperfections introduced by humans

        After listening to the playing in the video, I really think you've got that the wrong way round ...

    • Meh. Call me when they've perfected the robotic skin flute player.

  • But does it run Linux? (Score:5, Informative)

    by bersl2 (689221) on Friday June 20 2008, @04:38PM (#23879501) Journal

    Actually, the answer is yes [cio.com.au].

  • Doomoo ari-datou.. Missu-ta Roh-baa-tou..

  • Look on the bright side... (Score:4, Funny)

    by camperdave (969942) on Friday June 20 2008, @04:38PM (#23879507) Journal
    Look on the bright side. They could have made a robotic bagpipe player.
  • Captured by robots has a whole band of robots [capturedbyrobots.com] that play their own instruments.

  • Can it play 92 cents below the lowest octave of E-Flat?

  • After-perfomance quote (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dhar (19056) on Friday June 20 2008, @04:45PM (#23879603) Homepage

    After the performance, the clarinet was overheard saying, "All your brass are belong to us."

    -g.

      • Narrator: In A.D. 2101, song was beginning.
        Captain: What happen ?
        Mechanic: Somebody set up us the drumloop.
        Operator: We get signal.
        Captain: What !
        Operator: Main amp turn on.
        Captain: It's you !!
        CATS: How are you gentlemen !!
        CATS: All your bass are belong to us.

  • Electronic orchestras (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Alioth (221270) <no@spam> on Friday June 20 2008, @04:56PM (#23879747) Journal

    Well, I prefer this one :-)

    http://vimeo.com/1109226 [vimeo.com]

  • Contest website and longer article (Score:4, Informative)

    by againjj (1132651) on Friday June 20 2008, @04:57PM (#23879763)
    Here is the contest website [artemisia-...iation.org] and a longer article [computerworld.com.au].

  • No more robotic pianos (Score:3, Interesting)

    by heroine (1220) on Friday June 20 2008, @07:04PM (#23880931) Homepage

    Robotic pianos have been around for over 100 years & they've never sounded as good as a human. After all this time they finally moved on to other instruments.

  • From a member of the robot team (Score:4, Informative)

    by MusicAcoustics (1311525) on Friday June 20 2008, @08:19PM (#23881469)
    A colleague told me of this discussion and suggested that I give a brief explanation of the motivation for this project. I'm from the Music Acoustics Group at UNSW. We maintain a large web site http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/music/ [unsw.edu.au] for the benefit of musicians, students and interested others. It has more details on the robot. The introduction on our site is aimed at a good high school student, but if you go deep enough it leads to our technical research papers. - Most of the time, we study real musical instruments, real musicians, the voice and the ear. Some of this is sponsored by companies (instrument makers, a medical device company, a museum), but much of it is curiosity research. - For us, the robot project complements one of our areas in which we study real musicians and how they play. We want to know, in some detail, why a real musician plays better and makes a better sound than a beginner. (Curiosity research, but with an obvious application in music teaching and sometimes instrument design.) - The robot is a tool for testing our understanding of the clarinet-player system. The current version is very primitive: it was put together in a hurry for the competition. But in the next year or so we shall use it to understand a range of questions: * Why does a clarinet reed squeak? How can you stop it? * What are the important parameters in a good sound? * How important are tongue position, soft palate, glottis? What are the best combinations? * How important is lip damping, and how does it depend on the reed? * What are the important parameters in fine pitch control? * What are the important parameters in expressive performance? * What is necessary to convey warmth? * What is necessary to follow a conductor? - To some of these, of course, we already have answers from our previous research. But we want to have more confidence in those answers. - So for the Music Acoustics Lab, this robot is a very useful tool. It was also a good project for two undergraduate students (Paul and Jean) in physics: a project that required a range of experimental and analytical techniques. The other groups in the robot team have different motivations. - For Mechanical Engineering, this robot was an interesting challenge. It was a good undergraduate student project for Kim: a range of questions to answer and difficulties to overcome. - It was also an interesting challenge for Mark, a Computer Engineering student Mark. In fact all of the students involved were highly motivated, worked well, learned a lot -- and had a good time. For university staff, this alone would justify the project. - For NICTA (a national research centre in ICT), the contest was a formal challenge. A good way of displaying expertise and applications in embedded systems, and a good way of inspiring students. (John Judge is from NICTA). - The team details and some more discussion is at http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/clarinetrobot.html [unsw.edu.au] Music Acoustics.
    • A colleague told me of this discussion and suggested that I give a brief explanation of the motivation for this project. I'm from the Music Acoustics Group at UNSW. We maintain a large web site [unsw.edu.au] for the benefit of musicians, students and interested others. It has more details on the robot. The introduction on our site is aimed at a good high school student, but if you go deep enough it leads to our technical research papers.

      Most of the time, we study real musical instruments, real musicians, the voice and

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by maxume (22995)

      Commenting without saying anything is a much bigger weakness in this community. Well followed.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Are you kidding me? It is what humans do best, and I would say it is what separates humans from basically every other animal in the world we know of. We have the ability to spend resources on problems that aren't really useful to us yet, but one day they might be. All to play have fun and do something that wasn't possible before. Because of our natural playful attitudes towards life, we have been able to do very useful things. Using your criterion, some of man's greatest achievements are not worthwhile

    • Re:Innovation without purpose... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Translation Error (1176675) on Friday June 20 2008, @05:04PM (#23879841)

      Now pause to ask: What do I think of this project and WHY was it undertaken?
      Well, I suppose if you REALLY wanted the answer to that second question, you could--oh, I don't know--actually read the article, whose writer goes to the effort of explainining the reasons for both the entire competition and the clarinet project in three (tiny) paragraphs.

    • Re:Innovation without purpose... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Kjella (173770) on Friday June 20 2008, @05:18PM (#23879999) Homepage

      I feel we have to weigh the importance of the output against the cost of the task.
      How about time spent without "purpose" in general? What about all the time people spend being entertained or doing one of a million different hobbies and amateur sports? Or posting on slashdot for that matter? It's almost by definition that the output is not important, only the process. Some people like doing silly and innovative things, why should we just hold them to that standard? Call it what you want, but I still more useful than how most people spend their time. Your opinion might differ but I honestly don't care because the reasons I like my useless habits and hobbies aren't the same as yours since that's all about utility, not output.

    • Re:Innovation without purpose... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by JCSoRocks (1142053) on Friday June 20 2008, @05:20PM (#23880019)
      Same could be said of music, art, etc... doesn't make it any less interesting or important to people. Curiosity, tinkering, and "because I can" have lead to all sorts of amazing things. Just because you don't understand the motivation doesn't mean it's not worthwhile to someone in some way.
      • I would take your comment even further, and say that in general "fate" tends to laugh at plans, and (anecdotally, of course) most efforts undertaken to advance along a set path and accomplish a specific goal are fraught with failures and setbacks. On the other hand, efforts undertaken for the pleasure of doing them frequently not only yield our best culture, but our most innovative advancements (and at worst, they were generally at least amusing).

        That's not to say we shouldn't set goals, we should just e

      • Just imagine if all this effort had been spent on one of the millions and millions of things that a human cannot already do better. We could have had ALL the same "because I can" and STILL YET yielded some usefulness in the end.

        Everyone seems to simply go "cool! robots! OMGoneoneone" and misses the opportunity cost entirely.

    • Just because you don't see the value or purpose of a line of research does not mean it doesn't have value. At the end of the day, what we have is more in depth knowledge about what makes music good and bad, how to coordinate fine motion in robots, and numerous other advances.

      Just so you know, you come across as a supercilious ass in this post. All you've shown is your ignorance regarding science and research, and your desire to tell other people how to spend their time. If that's not the image you wish to p

    • Really? Why? Did not Leonardo da Vinci conceive complex things such as the tank, helicopter and if memory serves the calculator. These things had no practical use for him, or anyone else for about 400 years. Would you say it was all a waste of time?

      And robotics is cool, fine, maybe not everyone thinks so, I do. Its partly while im building one. WHY was it undertaken? No good reason in the grand scheme of things, but it amuses me and furthers my understanding of the subject, and things i learn here might ha

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by radarsat1 (786772)

      You are making a false assumption that the only thing that comes out of the project is a robot that plays the clarinet. There are several other outputs:

      First, some students learned how to build a robotic system. This has applications far beyond artistic works. Often sound and art is a very good excuse to spend time learning things that can be used for "real" applications later. For instance, would you prefer students build a clarinet playing robot or a robot that throws beer [youtube.com]? There are plenty of exampl

    • Join a banjo orchestra with your clarinet and you'll be a god of instrumental flexibility.

      • Join a banjo orchestra with your clarinet and you'll be a god of instrumental flexibility.

        This surprises me somewhat. I'll admit never playing a banjo, but I've played quite a few other stringed instruments, and almost all of them give you three different degrees of freedom you can freely adjust as a player: velocity at which you strike the string (affecting amplitude and intonation), position along the string you strike it at (which affects intonation) and precise pitch (in the case of a fretted instrumen

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