The interactive robotic percussionist: new developments in form, mechanics, perception and interaction design

ABSTRACT

We present new developments in the improvisational robotic percussionist project, aimed at improving human-robot interaction through design, mechanics, and perceptual modeling. Our robot, named Haile, listens to live human players, analyzes perceptual aspects in their playing in real-time, and uses the product of this analysis to play along in a collaborative and improvisatory manner. It is designed to combine the benefits of computational power in algorithmic music with the expression and visual interactivity of acoustic playing. Haile's new features include an anthropomorphic form, a linear-motor based robotic arm, a novel perceptual modeling implementation, and a number of new interaction schemes. The paper begins with an overview of related work and a presentation of goals and challenges based on Haile's original design. We then describe new developments in physical design, mechanics, perceptual implementation, and interaction design, aimed at improving human-robot interactions with Haile. The paper concludes with a description of a user study, conducted in an effort to evaluate the new functionalities and their effectiveness in facilitating expressive musical human-robot interaction. The results of the study show correlation between human's and Haile's rhythmic perception as well as user satisfaction regarding Haile's perceptual and mechanical abilties. The study also indicates areas for improvement such as the need for better timbre and loudness control and more advance and responsive interaction schemes.

REFERENCES

• 1: Baginsky, N.A. The Three Sirens: A Self-Learning Robotic Rock Band. http://www.the-three-sirens.info. Accessed July 2006.
• 2: Bamberger, J. Music, Math, and Science: Towards an Integrated Curriculum. Journal for Learning Through Music, (Spring 2000), 32--35.
• 3: Chordia, P. 2004. Automatic Tabla Transcription. PhD Thesis Stanford University.
• 4: Coren, S. and Ward, L.M. Sensation and Perception. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, San Diego, 1984.
• 5: Coyle, E.J. and Shmulevich, I.A. System for Machine Recognition of Music Patterns. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing. Seattle, WA ,1998, 3597--3600.
• 6: Cycling74. Max/MSP. http://www.cycling74.com Accessed July 2006.
• 7: Dannenberg, R. An On-line Algorithm for Real-Time Accompaniment. In Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference Paris, France, 193--198.
• 8: Roger B. Dannenberg , Ben Brown , Garth Zeglin , Ron Lupish, McBlare: a robotic bagpipe player, Proceedings of the 2005 conference on New interfaces for musical expression, May 26-28, 2005, Vancouver, Canada
• 9: Desain, P. and Honing, H.J. Rhythmic stability as explanation of category size. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition, Sydney, 2002 CD-Rom.
• 10: Foote, J. and Uchihashi, S. The Beat Spectrum: a new approach to rhythmic analysis. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Multimedia and Expo, Tokyo, Japan, 2001, 881--884.
• 11: Hewlett, B. and Selfreidge-Field, E. Melodic Similarity - Concepts, Procedures, and Applications. MIT Press. Cambridge, MA 1998.
• 12: Sergi Jordà, Afasia: the ultimate homeric one-man-multimedia-band, Proceedings of the 2002 conference on New interfaces for musical expression, May 24-26, 2002, Dublin, Ireland
• 13: Kapur, A. A History of Robotic Musical Instruments. In Proceedings of the 2005 International Computer Music Conference, Barcelona, Spain, 21--28.
• 14: Lerdahl, F. and Jackendoff, R. A Generative Theory of Tonal Music. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1983.
• 15: Lewis, G. Too Many Notes: Computers, Complexity and Culture in Voyager Leonardo Music Journal 10 Cambridge, MA, (2000) 33--39.
• 16: MakingThings. Teleo. http://www.makingthings.com. Accessed July 2006.
• 17: Narmour, E. The Analysis and Cognition of Basic Melodic Structures. Chicago University of Chicago Press, 1990.
• 18: Narmour, E. The Analysis and Cognition of Melodic Complexity: The Implication-Realization Model. Chicago University of Chicago Pres, 1992.
• 19: Nicola Orio , Serge Lemouton , Diemo Schwarz, Score following: state of the art and new developments, Proceedings of the 2003 conference on New interfaces for musical expression, May 22-24, 2003, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
• 20: Pachet, F. The continuator: Musical interaction with style. In Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference. Göteborg, Sweden, 2002, 211--218.
• 21: Papert, S. Mindstorms. New York Basic Books, 1980.
• 22: Paulus, J. and Kalpuri, A. Measuring the Similarity of Rhythmic Patterns. In Proceedings of the 2002 International Conference on Music Information Retrieval. Paris, France, 150--156.
• 23: Puckette, M. Real-time Audio Analysis Tools for Pd and MSP. In Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference, Ann Arbor, MI, 1998, 109--112.
• 24: Rae, G.W. Robotic Instruments. http://logosfoundation.org/instrum_gwr/automatons.html Accessed July 2006
• 25: Rauscher, F.H, Shaw, G.L, and Ky, C.N. 1993. Music and spatial task performance Nature 365, 611
• 26: M. Resnick , F. Martin , R. Sargent , B. Silverman, Programmable bricks: toys to think with, IBM Systems Journal, v.35 n.3-4, p.443-452, 1996
• 27: Robert Rowe, Machine Musicianship, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2004
• 28: Scheirer, E. 1998. Tempo and beat analysis of acoustic musical signals Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 103:1 588--601.
• 29: Schillinger, J. The Mathematical Basis of the Arts. Da Capo Press, New York, 1976.
• 30: Eric Singer , Jeff Feddersen , Chad Redmon , Bil Bowen, LEMUR's musical robots, Proceedings of the 2004 conference on New interfaces for musical expression, p.181-184, June 03-05, 2004, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan
• 31: Eric Singer , Kevin Larke , David Bianciardi, LEMUR GuitarBot: MIDI robotic string instrument, Proceedings of the 2003 conference on New interfaces for musical expression, May 22-24, 2003, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
• 32: Sony. 2003. QRIO conductor Robot. http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/QRIO/works/20040325e.html Accessed July 2007
• 33: Takanishi, A. and Maeda, M. Development of Anthropomorphic Flutist Robot WF-3RIV. In the Proceedings of International Computer Music Conference, 1998, 328--331.
• 34: Andranik S. Tangiuane, Artificial Perception and Music Recognition, Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., Secaucus, NJ, 1993
• 35: Taylor, M. Remembering How to Drum: Djembe Technique (DVD). Blue 7 Media, 2004.
• 36: Tindale, A.R., Kapur, A., Schloss, W.A., and Tzanetakis, G. Indirect Acquisition of Percussion Gestures Using Timbre Recognition. In Proceedings of the Colloque Interdisciplinaire de Musicologie. Montreal, 2005.
• 37: Toyota. 2004. Trumpet Robot. http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/special/robot Accessed July 2006.
• 38: Trehub, S.E., Bull, D., and Thorpe, L.A. 1984. Infants' perception of melodies: The role of melodic contour Child Development, 55:1 821--830.
• 39: Vercoe, B. The Synthetic Performer in the Context of Live Performance. In Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference. Paris, France, 1984 199--200.
• 40: Gil Weinberg, Interconnected Musical Networks: Toward a Theoretical Framework, Computer Music Journal, v.29 n.2, p.23-39, June 2005 [doi>10.1162/0148926054094350]
• 41: Weinberg, G., Lackner, T., and Jay, J. The Musical Fireflies - Learning About Mathematical Patterns in Music Through Expression and Play. In Proceedings of the Colloquium on Musical Informatics 2001. A'quila, Italy 146--149.
• 42: Weinberg, G., Driscoll S., and Parry, M. Musical Interactions with a Perceptual Robotic Percussionist. In Proceedings of the of IEEE International Workshop on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, 2005, Nashville, TN 456--461.
• 43: Gil Weinberg, Jam'aa for Haile: Copyright restrictions prevent ACM from providing the full text for this work., ACM SIGGRAPH 2006 Art gallery, July 30-August 03, 2006, Boston, Massachusetts [doi>10.1145/1178977.1179093]
• 44: Todd Winkler, Composing Interactive Music: Techniques and Ideas Using Max, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2001

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  J. Computer Applications
  J.5 ARTS AND HUMANITIES
      Subjects: Performing arts (e.g., dance, music)

General Terms:
Algorithms, Design, Human Factors, Performance

Keywords:
music, perception, percussion, robotics