Robot Orchestra Makes Music
Students at the California Institute of the Arts have built an orchestra of interactive musical robots. Musicians use specialized computer programs to play the robotic instruments. The Associated Press sat in on a rehearsal for the group’s May 12 concert.
Tammy, BreakBot, NotomotoN, GlockenBot and a handful of other kinetic music machines round out the KarmetiK Machine Orchestra. Made from old furniture, scraps from electronic junkyards and other found objects, this robot orchestra combines synthesized music with programmed machines. When you put together you get beautiful music.
Four years ago Ajay Kapur decided that he wanted to create a full orchestra composed equally of humans and robots. He also wanted trained musicians and programmers to work together to program and instruct the robots.
He worked with Michael Darling, the CalArts’ theater program director to recruit musicians from their classes and to build robots from broken furniture and other discarded theater props.
After several months of collaboration, KarmetiK was born.
Kapur, who holds a doctorate in electronic engineering, says, “It’s like a symbiotic relationship between humans and machines.”
And the machines in the orchestra can do things humans can’t, including playing every note perfectly and faster than humanly possible.
This is not the first group of music-loving robots ever to perform. A few years ago a solo bot at Japan’s Waseda University played Flight of the Bumblebee flawlessly and faster than any human could. Jazz guitarist Pat Metheny also took a robot orchestra on the road with him last year. But like the Japanese robot, his bots played pre-programmed compositions.
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