Saxy jazz-playing robot
By Paul Miller 
posted Feb 13th 2007 10:06AM
posted Feb 13th 2007 10:06AM
[Via Boing Boing]
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That's the most horrendous thing I've ever heard!!
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.
How about Flight of the Bumblebee? It doesn't get any more static than that. Imagine how fast Johnny 5 here could play it.
ok, we'll give the robot time to adjust. maybe it just needs more spit...
yeah, how does one artifically simulate an embouchure?
*waits for comment about saxophone-playing robot overlords*
I for one welcome our jazzy, scatting, bee-bopping robot overlords.
Kind of like the "Pops".
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.
Jazz isn't music, it's noise, so this must be jazz.
Says the pop loving Brittney Spears fanatic...
Says the pop loving Brittney Spears fanatic...
sax-uh-muh-phooooooooone
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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Damn, now I'll never get any gigs. :(
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...?
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