Video: Toyota's Humanoid Minstrels Take the Stage in Tokyo, Trumpeting Robots' Mastery of Music

if you want to impress me, replace the pianist with a robot.
also, were the robots playing based on stimulus reactions, so that they were playing what they "thought" sounded good, or were they programed specifically to play that. if it was the former: i commend you. you have made robots advanced enough to imagine, and create. if it was the latter: that is just above garage robotics level, and not that impressive (though finding a way for a robot To play a trumpet must have been quite the roadblock)

"Mastery of music"?

It's not as though a tape recorder can't play back a concert.
Sure, it's impressive that technologically a robot can play the violin, but let's reserve the incredulous claim of mastery for when the machine composes the music and then picks up the instrument to recite that composition.

That's the sweetest wheelchair I've ever seen!

I'm impressed, and I think people who've tried to emulate the natural sound of physical instruments through synthesis and sampling would appreciate it. A machine mimmicking a human being's ability to play an instrument in an imperfect, analog way is very interesting indeed. Bare in mind, the robot is still having a bit of trouble moving his arms to generate a vibrato.

I think the robot just pretends to mimic the movements of playing while an iPod is playing the track through an integrated speaker.

I'm disappointed. From my 20+ years of classical training, it's sad to see that such a big show is put on when the robots are only making the movements while not making the music. For one, an embouchure is extremely difficult to form for the trumpet, and although we can't see it in the video, I very much doubt a robot can master vibrato so easily. Secondly, and more noticeably, the robot violin player also used vibrato. The only way vibrato is formed is from the osculation of the fingers and wrist. The robot makes no such movement, but magically there is still vibrato. This is all a fraud, and again, I'm disappointed.

I wonder if the "unimpressed" people here have ever attempted to build a simple electronic circuit to handle programming instruction.

Or if they have ever attempted to create a useful AI piece of software that uses neural networks to "learn" stuff.

@B.V.

Exactly!

Sure, I applaud their ability to build a robot, but this article is on the robots "playing" musical instruments. As they are not actually playing the instruments, everyone has the right to be unimpressed with that alone.

They ARE actually playing the instruments, what are you talking about?

The only vibrato I hear is in the last video--and clearly originates in the human violinist who DOES make the rapid up-and-down wrist motion necessary to generate it.

Sorry, by "last video" I meant the last video of just the musicians, or the "four-piece finale" video... not the video with the wheelchair thing.

again, I will be impressed when I see a robot either compose, or play a piano.

*sigh*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_music#Music_composed_and_performed_by_computers