Saxy jazz-playing robot

Here we have a creepo, many-fingered Japanese robot playing John Coltrane's solo from "Giant Steps." Sure, he's got the chops, but just doesn't seem to capture the emotion of the piece. After the robots dominate the human race will they torture us with such lifeless renditions of all our once-sacred tunes? The video's after the break.

[Via Boing Boing]

[Tobias @ Feb 13th 2007 10:17AM]

That's the most horrendous thing I've ever heard!!

[Gnu @ Feb 13th 2007 10:28AM]

Okay, so there's no vibrato or proper legato phrasing. And Giant Steps was probably the poorest choice of composition, since it's a piece that's naturally going to sound horrible in static half-step notes. But it's a note-for-note rendition otherwise, and it's pretty impressive. Woodwinds are difficult enough for humans; give the robots some time to get the hang of it.

[Tony @ Feb 13th 2007 10:53AM]

How about Flight of the Bumblebee? It doesn't get any more static than that. Imagine how fast Johnny 5 here could play it.

[angelsvairwaves1 @ Feb 13th 2007 5:12PM]

ok, we'll give the robot time to adjust. maybe it just needs more spit...

[Aaron @ Feb 13th 2007 10:53AM]

*waits for comment about saxophone-playing robot overlords*

[Peter @ Feb 13th 2007 11:21AM]

I for one welcome our jazzy, scatting, bee-bopping robot overlords.

[Scabies @ Feb 13th 2007 11:19AM]

yeah, how does one artifically simulate an embouchure?

[Mr. B @ Feb 13th 2007 12:03PM]

Hear a human for comparison - http://tools.wikimedia.de/~gmaxwell/jorbis/JOrbisPlayer.php?path=Giant+Steps.ogg&wiki=en

A fascinating experiment, no doubt... but not much a musician.

[tom_squick @ Feb 13th 2007 12:10PM]

Kind of like the "Pops".

[The Big Fudge @ Feb 13th 2007 12:18PM]

Jazz isn't music, it's noise, so this must be jazz.

[Soulquarian @ Feb 13th 2007 1:03PM]

Says the pop loving Brittney Spears fanatic...

[Soulquarian @ Feb 13th 2007 1:46PM]

Says the pop loving Brittney Spears fanatic...

[hesh @ Feb 13th 2007 1:35PM]

sax-uh-muh-phooooooooone

[Robo-Dave @ Feb 13th 2007 2:51PM]

It's all part of my evil plan! Soon, music lovers across the globe will do anything to get it to stop!
HA HA HAAAA HAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[bpowers @ Feb 13th 2007 4:00PM]

Damn, now I'll never get any gigs. :(

[xerxesdaphat @ Feb 14th 2007 7:11AM]

Bad choice of song there -- and performer. John Coltrane, especially in the era he wrote this piece, was known for his so-called `sheets of sound' -- very fast arpeggios combined with harmonics (Thelonious Monk taught him this, apparently) produced by weird key combinations, so a monophonic saxophone could sound almost as if it was playing a chord. Obviously it's hard for a robot -- let alone even a MIDI transcript (I assume that's what it's playing off) to reproduce something like that.

It'd make much more sense with the bass and piano giving an idea of the chord progression -- Trane was known for playing plenty of `chord substitutes' -- fitting as many as 3 or 4 chords into a space where there's normally one -- so it's not easy to follow as a saxophone solo.

Technically impressive though. Pressing the keys is nothing -- but the embouchure? How on earth...?

[mohsen @ Apr 20th 2007 5:19PM]

as