Integrating hyperinstruments, musical robots & machine musicianship for North Indian classical music

Abstract

This paper describes a system enabling a human to perform music with a robot in real-time, in the context of North Indian classical music. We modify a traditional acoustic sitar into a hyperinstrument in order to capture performance gestures for musical analysis. A custom built four-armed robotic Indian drummer was built using a microchip, solenoids, aluminum and folk frame drums. Algorithms written towards "intelligent" machine musicianship are described.' The final goal of this research is to have a robotic drummer accompany a professional human sitar player live in performance.