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Final Bow
For perhaps the first time ever, a robot played a cello live on stage during a performance by a symphony orchestra.
As Reuters reports, a pair of industrial robotic arms programmed by researcher and composer Fredrik Gran played a piece by Swedish composer Jacob Muhlrad alongside the Malmo Symphony Orchestra earlier this month.
Footage of the unusual event shows the arms smoothly gliding a bow across the instrument's four strings, somewhat like a human musician, while a 3D-printed appendage allows it to manipulate the fretboard, resulting in an eerie, albeit crude and expressionless performance.
It's a particularly difficult technological feat, considering the complexity of playing a stringed instrument compared to simply hitting a note on a piano or striking a drum.
"[Gran] actually worked with two industrial robot arms that could play the cello," Muhlrad told Reuters. "And I thought that was very interesting, because there's obviously a lot of self-playing pianos, but the string instrument is so intricate, so I was very curious about how it actually works."
String Theory
Muhlrad has experimented with cutting-edge performance tech before.
"For me as a composer, it's kind of liberating to go beyond the human anatomy when you think about what to write for a cello," he told Reuters.
While he's already considering employing AI during future performances, he also said that it's "impossible" to ever fully "replace live musicians."
And given the arguably lackluster and deadpan performance — after all, it's a pair of robotic arms, not a human performer who honed their craft over decades — we're glad he's still bullish on humans.
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