Music-making robot plays alongside musicians, has its own band
Engineers at Georgia Tech Center of Music built a robot that can play alongside musicians. The robot improvises beats and rhythms that match the music around it.
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Named “Shimon,” the automation takes the form of a marimba. Its arms can hit a plethora of notes and stay up to tempo with live musicians. According to NowThis, the robot can create hundreds of original melodies.
This robot can listen to human musicians and improvise along with them pic.twitter.com/rFtqnQwwYO
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) October 16, 2018
This invention proves useful to composers and musicians alike, as it can provide inspiration to the artists it is performing with.
“Most of what Shimon is playing is generated using a new process where he creates hundreds of melodies off line based on deep learning analysis of large musical data sets,” creator Gil Weinberg says in a story with TechCrunch. “Then us humans (me and my students) choose melodies we like and orchestrate/structure them into songs. It’s a new form of robot-human collaboration, at least for us.”
While the invention specializes in jazz, jam-rock and reggae, Weinberg hopes to make advances to the robot so it can adapt to a multitude of genres. More specifically, Weinberg wants it to perform alongside freestyle rappers.
Additionally, Shimon has its own band called “Shimon and Friends.” Check it out below!
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What do you think of this robotic band member? Let us know in the comments below!
