Robot of the Week
Robot or human, Berkeley residents still have to put up with the noise

A musician has harnessed the power of two Nintendo Wiimotes to become a cyborg percussionist with the robo-band Jazari. His playing of one drum machine can evoke an automated response from another, so that he can go around the drum circle in a beautiful display of human-robot improvisation.

The man behind the machine, Patrick Flanagan, is a composer who cites music theory, music cognition, and machine learning as the three "chin-stroking disciplines" that influence his work. He created Jazari with a nod to Al-Jazari, a polymath of the Arab world in the 13th century who supposedly created the world's first robot band.

Each of the Wiimote buttons can control higher or lower tones on certain drums, while tiling down or up controls volume. Tilting the Wiimote to the side and holding down a button can increase or decrease the repeating beat, ranging from quarter notes to 32nd notes.

Dually wielded Wiimotes also allows Flanagan to reverse the drum patterns on two drum machines, speed up one drum machine faster than the other, and do other neat tricks that alter the rhythm. Music geeks and curious readers alike can check out a full explanation below.

20 Comments

awsome..

new way to play wii music.

is it possible to play that without wii motion plus?

Not only is the Jazari an ingenious machine that is just brimming with potential, it also plays some very stimulating drum rhythms. I believe Patrick has really created something exceptional.

Very cool. Better than seeing another beer robot. Music and specifically sound are an under-used area of robotics.

bdhoro87

from coral gables, fl

Human hippies will never be obsolete. While the tech is pretty awesome, music is made by people, and what makes a drum circle fun is the many different rhythms and ideas brought in by the plethora of people involved.

Anything to get rid of hippies

BRILLIANT!!

MORE COWBELL!!!

omg hippies r Obsolete

i'm wondering if he soaked the drums in patchouli oil and the sweet scent of ganja so you could get the full hippie drum circle experience. then again, i guess for it to be the true experience he shoulda added an enormous, loud, djembe that is played out of time with the rest of the group

Badass dude!! Hover board, please?

www.freebord.com/ride <-- Snowboard the Streets!

Until this thing can play music and smoke pot at the same time it's not going to replace hippies. It's hard to replace a smelly multitasking hippie.

Replace hippies? ...Who'll teach our kids?

Awesome. Can't stand hippies. Now if we can get rid of Christians, Muslims and Jews, Rednecks and Oprah, things would be great.

He failed in one big way and things related to it - those goblet-shaped drums (the djembes) and also the bongos - are played with the hands; the <> sounds he gets sound dumb/wrong/bad by comparison. Each one of those drums use [by convention] certain kind of sounds based on how and where the drum is struck (BY THE HANDS) - the djembe three basic sounds and the bongos a few more. Although he did position the little beaters over different locations of the drumheads to give us the necessary pitch changes, he didn't think to emulate or didn't know about those change of timbre and levels of excitement/volume attendant with each type of HAND stroke, nor the slight shadings of pitch variance occurring between individual strokes of the same type.
In a way, he gets carried away with speed at times by fitting too many notes into the rhythmic texture. Related to this are the dense clusters of cowbell notes towards the end, which sound quite ludicrous and unmusical. I'm thinking that much of this wouldn't be played by real drum aficionados, and doesn't make for very enjoyable listening or dancing.
After spending so much money and time building the machines, he didn't bother to dedicate a microphone to the cabasa (the cylidrical twist-shaker with the little chrome beads), so one can barely hear it.

Good!! Now we hippies can lay on the sofa and yust smoke and relax.Im very impressed. One mand band through a wii great idea.free

Live long and prosper friends.

Did this dude take advantage of Motion Control Plus or is it just for show?

This is really something else. Nintendo should be sponsoring people like this guy.

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He failed in one big way and things related to it - those goblet-shaped drums (the djembes) and also the bongos - are played with the hands; the <
> sounds he gets sound dumb/wrong/bad by comparison. Each one of those drums use [by convention] certain kind of sounds based on how and where the drum is struck (BY THE HANDS)thank you very much
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تحميل,ترانيم,توبيكات,اهداف مباراة,صور,اخبار,جريدة,وظائف,يوتيوب,مشاهدة,خلفيات,رمزيات,زفات,بدون موسيقى,كلمات اغنيه,طريقة عمل, طريقة صنع,كيفية عمل,كيفيه صنع,ديكور,للجوال,روايه,فيسات اطارات روايات,بنات,هيدرات,للتصميم,ازياء,فساتين
طبخ , خلفيات ,سيارة,انمي برنامج مسلسل قنوات تواقيع شباب للفوتوشوب مسجات رسائل وسائط ثيمات فيديو,ابيات فوائد,بث مباشر,رابط نقل,ملخصthe djembe three basic sounds and the bongos a few more. Although he did position the little beaters over different locations of the drumheads to give us the necessary pitch changes, he didn't think to emulate or didn't know about those change of timbre and levels of excitement/volume attendant with each type of HAND stroke, nor the slight shadings of pitch variance occurring between individual strokes of the same type.
In a way, he gets carried away with speed at times by fitting too many notes into the rhythmic texture. Related to this are the dense clusters of cowbell notes towards the end, which sound quite ludicrous and unmusical. I'm thinking that much of this wouldn't be played by real drum aficionados, and doesn't make for very enjoyable listening or dancing.
After spending so much money and time building the machines, he didn't bother to dedicate a microphone to the cabasa (the cylidrical twist-shaker with the little chrome beads), so one can barely hear it.

So humans are the greatest, as long as innovative thinking, anything is possible. clinical thermometer|infrared forehead thermometer|digital thermometer|ear thermometer find also very good.

Awesome. Can't stand hippies. Now if we can get rid of Christians, Muslims and Jews, Rednecks and Oprah, things would be great.

Jeff
http://burnwiigames.org/

Not only is the Jazari an ingenious machine that is just brimming with potential, it also plays some very stimulating drum rhythms. I believe Patrick has really created something exceptional.

www.yuregininsesi.com


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