Piano-Playing Robot Hearkens To Nerd-World Yesteryear

This robot playing “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on the piano looks kind of wack compared to hep cats like Shimon, the head-bobbing marimba player, or the avant-garde improv trio Three Sirens, or Toyota’s incredibly tight four-piece band. (Not even to mention Daft Punk, or Herbie Hancock.) But it’s actually pretty cool, because it can read and play a musical score on the spot.

As New Scientist reports,

“The robot’s limbs are controlled by motors and their position is updated every 20 milliseconds. At the moment, it can only hit the white keys. The robot can pick up wrong notes thanks to a pitch detection algorithm which makes sure each note is the correct pitch for that key. If the pitch is wrong, the system checks whether it fits neighbouring keys and the robot makes a note of the mistake so it doesn’t make it again. It also uses the algorithms to detect the pitch of notes played by others so that it can join in and harmonise.”

Very impressive programming. But then, maybe less so when you realize that people like Tim Pace were doing stuff like this, thirty years ago:

As People magazine reported, way back in 1980,

“Pace, who tinkered with electric trains and radios as a boy, did aircraft maintenance on the Navy carrier York-town, then worked as light man for Jimi Hendrix, Rush, the Byrds and the Kinks. The movie Star Wars inspired his robot sideline in 1977; at first he used an R2-D2 clone but redesigned the robot when director George Lucas’ lawyer threatened suit. A sci-fi freak, Pace drives to Star Trek conventions with wife Lorrie, 27, in his own USS Enterprise. It has a gadgety control panel and fires fake laser beams but still looks like the mail truck it once was.”

Wow. Robots, man. On Friday!