About a year ago I wrote about the possibility of robots appearing in school music ensembles. With The League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots (LEMUR) still at it, a set of concerts are being performed by robots with music commissioned from composers ranging from Morton Subotnick to the group They Might Be Giants.
Is it possible that at some point our society might face a situation where robots, rather than human beings, are used to perform music in certain places?
More info here on the trumpet playing robot.
On the other hand, many musicians may be welcoming the opportunity to play alongside robots or even as in Suguru Goto’s case augmenting themselves with robotic technology..
The upcoming concert by LEMUR for example will feature a string quartet playing with robots. They even have a video clip of a rehearsal session available. I am in no way arguing that robots should replace human performers. However, should we not consider the use of robots to perform music that is physically impossible for humans to play or act as accompanists in certain situations?
In these cases robots are playing acoustic instruments not pre-recorded music or synthesized sounds.
On the Ensemble Robot website the video clips of stellar musicians such as Evan Ziporyn and Todd Reynolds playing alongside heliphones, beatbots and blobots may be useful in shifting the way people think about the potential of robot “performers” or instruments.
As scientists and engineers continue developing music robotics what is our role as music educators? A discussion of robots playing instruments can bring up many ethical, musical and philosophical issues. We should consider that some of our students might end up in electronic labs designing these technologies, in situations where robots playing music are present, composing music for humans and robots or even performing with a robot at some point in their life. Surely a musical and artistic perspective would be beneficial for each of these situations.
Perhaps the day is not too far away when a student’s school science project is also her or his stand partner.