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Robotic Musicianship at Georgia Tech

Gil Weinberg, Professor and The Founding Director of Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology

Wegmans Hall 1400

Abstract: The Robotic Musicianship Group at Georgia Tech aims to facilitate meaningful musical interactions between humans and machines, leading to novel musical experiences and outcomes. In our research we combine computational modeling approaches for music perception, interaction, and improvisation, with novel approaches for generating acoustic responses in physical, social, and embodied manner. The motivation for this work is based on the hypothesis that real-time collaboration between human and robotic players can capitalize on the combination of their unique strengths to produce new and compelling music. Our goal is to combine human qualities such as musical expression and emotions with robotic traits such as powerful processing, mechanical virtuosity, the ability to perform sophisticated algorithmic transformations, and the capacity to utilize embodied musical cognition, where the robotic body shapes its musical cognition. The talk will feature a number of approaches we have explored for perceptual modeling, improvisation, path planning, and gestural interaction with robotic platforms such as Haile, Shimon, Shimi and the robotic drumming prosthesis.

Gil Weinberg is a Professor and The Founding Director of Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology, where he leads the Robotic Musicianship group. His research focuses on developing artificial creativity and musical expression for robots and augmented humans. Among his projects are a marimba playing robotic musician called Shimon that uses machine learning for composition, improvisation, and interaction, and a prosthetic robotic arm for amputees that restores and enhances human musical abilities. Weinberg has presented his work worldwide in venues such as the United Nations, The Kennedy Center, The World Economic Forum, Ars Electronica, Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt Museum, SIGGRAPH, and TED among others. His music has been performed with orchestras such as Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the National Irish Symphony Orchestra, and the Scottish BBC Symphony, while his research has been disseminated through articles and patents in the field of human-robot-interaction and music technology. Weinberg received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT and his B.A. from the interdisciplinary program for fostering excellence in Tel Aviv University.

Refreshments will be served

Refreshments will be provided