Discovery Exercise #7

Although I must admit that the headline "Drink Beer to Avoid Cancer..." was very tempting, I was drawn to an article about a melody-generating robot. Dubbed Jambot by its Aussie creator, the device is an "artificial musical accompanist" which is able to "listen to music and improvise musical rhythms and melodies to it."

According to researcher/developer Toby Gifford, "Jambot is a musical robot, but it's not made of metal and it doesn't blow smoke," but if it did, it would feel right at home jamming with these South Park hippies:
The jamming music -- or "crunchy groove" -- that is heard in the background seems like it would be the perfect use of a device such as Jambot.

"It is common for a band or solo musician to have a computer-based backing track or use looping pedals, but these kinds of technology are not very flexible or responsive to what's happening on stage," Mr Gifford said.

Other uses could be filling out a smaller band's sound with a robot member, or even having a digital partner playing along with a lone singer, pianist, etc.

One other note: I'm all for this type of development, because when the robots finally take over the world someday, I'm hoping that it is a massive jam band army rather than a dumptruck that turns into some kind of mean robot with weapons and stuff.