{"39823":{"#nid":"39823","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Music Technology Researchers Create New Robotic Percussionist","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech has created an improved version of the robotic percussionist. The second edition, named Shimon, is designed to play a melodic instrument, the marimba. It, therefore, utilizes more sophisticated algorithms for music perception and improvisation in comparison to Haile, Georgia Tech\u0027s first robotic drummer. The robot can also create richer sound and more communicative visual cues.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShimon is able to interact with his human counterparts on a much more social level. The robot\u0027s head is made to be more interactive and give fellow musicians social cues that relate to the music it\u0027s playing.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022I really wanted to make this robot more socially dynamic to enrich the interaction experience for the human musicians,\u0022 said Gil Weinberg, director of Music Technology. \u0022We start with simple social cues such as recognizing a beat and moving the robot\u0027s head. Sort of getting itself into the groove.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShimon is able to interact with his human counterparts on a much more social level. The robot\u0027s head is made to be more interactive and give fellow musicians social cues that relate to the music it\u0027s playing.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022I really wanted to make this robot more socially dynamic to enrich the interaction experience for the human musicians,\u0022 said Gil Weinberg, director of Music Technology. \u0022We start with simple social cues such as recognizing a beat and moving the robot\u0027s head. Sort of getting itself into the groove.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022There is really a back channel of social cues that go on between musicians,\u0022 said Andrea Thomaz, assistant professor in the School of Interactive Computing, who is collaborating with Weinberg on building the robot\u0027s head. \u0022Shimon\u0027s head is really meant to take Gil\u0027s robotic musicians into that realm of being a true social collaborative music partner.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022When a guitar player and a drummer want to finish a piece together, there are synchronization and anticipation social cues given,\u0022 said Weinberg. \u0022With Shimon, there are four arms that stretch over a large instrument that give other musicians anticipatory cues of what is going to happen next.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShimon is able to interact with the environment around it, analyze rhythm, melodies and harmony and use his musical understanding to improvise with humans.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWeinberg says that it can help study the way we think and play music because it expands the knowledge we have about music making and the musical mind.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHaile, Weinberg\u0027s first robotic percussionist, played in venues all around the world and has led to additional research in human-robotic interaction. The Robotic Musicianship project, which led to the development of Shimon, was supported by NSF and by the GVU Research Innovation grant.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Robot will interact with humans and give social cues"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech has created an improved version of the robotic percussionist. The second edition, named Shimon, is designed to play a melodic instrument, the marimba. It, therefore, utilizes more sophisticated algorithms for music perception and improvisation in comparison to Haile, Georgia Tech\u0027s first robotic drummer.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Shimon is the second robotic percussionist created by Georgia Te"}],"uid":"27304","created_gmt":"2008-11-07 01:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:01:15","author":"Matthew Nagel","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2008-11-07T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2008-11-07T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"39824":{"id":"39824","type":"image","title":"Andrea Thomaz and Shimon\\\u0027s head","body":null,"created":"1449174126","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 20:22:06","changed":"1475894249","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:37:29","alt":"Andrea Thomaz and Shimon\\\u0027s head","file":{"fid":"189629","name":"ttj62996.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ttj62996_1.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ttj62996_1.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":52189,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/ttj62996_1.jpg?itok=ehhk3SQS"}}},"media_ids":["39824"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/gtcmt.gatech.edu\/","title":"Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.coa.gatech.edu\/music\/","title":"Georgia Tech Music Department"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.coa.gatech.edu\/","title":"Georgia Tech College of Architecture"}],"groups":[{"id":"1183","name":"Home"}],"categories":[{"id":"148","name":"Music and Music Technology"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"152","name":"Robotics"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1936","name":"Center for Music Technology"},{"id":"1939","name":"Gil Weinberg"},{"id":"1309","name":"music technology"},{"id":"1949","name":"Robotic Percussionist"},{"id":"667","name":"robotics"},{"id":"169304","name":"Shimon"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Tech Media Relations\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELaura Diamond\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:laura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Elaura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-894-6016\u003Cbr \/\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-660-2926\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["matthew.nagel@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}