Honda's Humanoid Robot ASIMO Conducts the Detroit Symphony Orchestra

By now, you guys are already familiar with robots playing violins or trumpets so it should come as no surprise when they've stepped up to the podium.

Leonard Slatkin, director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, stepped aside on Tuesday night for a special guest conductor. Standing at 4-foot-3 and weighing 119 pounds, Honda's Humanoid robot Asimo made his conducting debut with the piece. Asimo conducted the Orchestra to"The Impossible Dream" of Broadway fame Man of La Mancha.

ASIMO, which stands for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility, is a robot designed and built by Honda. The company filmed Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) education director Charles Burke conducting the piece and programmed Asimo to copy his movements.

I found it interesting how faultless ASIMO was in his conducting yet players were taken aback from his metronomic style. A trumpeter described how difficult was to play on cue with the lack of eyes on ASIMO. Conductor Slatkin even remarked how improvisation was the one thing that this robot lacked in its conducting style. Essentially, the robot was a very complex and expensive windup toy that could conduct the same piece over and over without error. It has yet to acquire the kind of independent thought and expression that makes humans so unique in its body language or facial expressions.

Playing Football with the Violin

What do violins and football have in common? Nothing really except for some destructive fun in this video. I was browsing during the half time show of the Superbowl Sunday for more random string related video. Type in the keywords "football" and "violin" into YouTube and the following is what you get:



Hut, hut, hike and the violin is tossed to the receiver who ducks for cover.

Whoever vlogger nfultonviolins is, they have a lot of free time around their shop. You can find other destructive sports related strings videos such as playing tennis with your violin or swashbuckling sword fights. My favorite though has to be hockey. The goalie has a custom made cello back as his padding and fractional size violins are used as flat hitting surface of the hockey sticks.

For more string instrument destruction see previous related posts:

• Wow that Violin Knocked Me Away!
  
• Death of a Cello (video link here)

PVC Electric Pipe Cello

I've decided to start up another category for future blog entries. It will be simply be titled "weird instruments". Any string instruments that defy the classical patterns and construction will be included. Take for example this entry title "PVC Pipe Cello". A while back, there was YouTube video challenge asking users to create a unique home made instrument and post videos of their creation online. I was hesitant at first to give the challenge some coverage on the blog since this is supposed to be documenting our daily life in the shop, but I thought it couldn't hurt to shed light on some amateur makers.

The maker of this electric cello spent under $100 and about 40 hours to make this instrument for a class project. Materials: PVC pipes, tuning knobs from a guitar, a bike pedal, and used cello strings. With no musical background at all, demonstrates how to play: bow across the strings in an upright position, pluck the upright like a guitar, or you can wrap the instrument around one arm and play it like a violin. Well, he's managed a traditional "upright" cello into a waist wrapping instrument.

Toyota Robot Plays Violin

[Toyota Violin Robot, image from CBSnews]

Searching the net for any interesting videos and this one came up in YouTube. Remember the videos of those life size dancing robots from Toyota that went viral some time ago? They were part of Toyota's expo that showed off its latest robots programmed to mimic a number human activities like walking up stairs, choreographed fan dances, and trumpet playing. Well now Toyota's unveiled another line of robots; one that can play the violin!



This new robot can play a violin! Its musical talent is made possible via 17 joints in both its hands and arms. It stands at 152 cm (5 ft) and weighs 50 kg. The two-legged robot is dexterous enough to play a few stanzas -- complete with vibrato sound -- from Edward Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance", a popular tune at graduation ceremonies.

Check out the rest of the robots that debuted at this particular event.

Violinist Paganini Comes Back to Life on Halloween via CyberSpace?

[Taken from GoogleVideo, Niccolo Paganini]

Hope all you readers had a great Halloween. I was meaning to get this post up in time but one day late. After searching on the Internet for more Halloween related concerts and events, I came across this video. Niccolo Paganini comes to life on all Hallow's Eve via the Internet. A video posted over on GoogleVideo shows the virtuoso impersonator on stage with an orchestra and conductor that looks more like Grandpa Munster than the famous count.

[Image & Source, taken from Wikipedia]

For any of you newbies, a little bit of history. Niccolo Paganini lived from 1782 until his death in 1840. In Europe, he was widely considered the greatest violinist of the century at the time-some say the best ever. His great technical and artistic abilities lead many of his contemporaries to spark rumors that he had "sold his soul to the devil."

Some more videos on the net for interesting classical related pictures or events: Clark Kent stopped by the UL-Lafayette Symphony Orchestra for a quick change in the phone booth.
Ooompa Loompas played in the Chicago Civic Orchestra.

The Internet has plenty of parents recording their precious kids' in concert. On the typical playing list are Symphony Fantastique, Night on Bald Mountain, and Pirates of the Carribean.

Speaking of kids in concert, don't miss out on this weekend's OAYO concert. They may have a belated Halloween theme to play. Be sure to check them out.

Video List:
Niccolo Paganini Back from the Dead
Superman to the Symphony
The Ooompa Loompa Section

Coming to Omaha: Andre Rieu & His Johann Strauss Orchestra

News for the locals, Nebraskans, and Midwesterners. Andre Rieu & His Johann Strauss Orchestra are performing at the Qwest Center in Omaha, NE. Get your tickets, while they're hot.

I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of Andre Rieu and his troupe of musicians (not a position taken by this shop:) It may be because I've got a classical training bias of what I think a concert should be like. Just like some people love the lyric and poetry of the song, I happen to enjoy the way the music sounds or the musicianship of the band members.

But that's okay. Most of the people that attend Andre's concerts are not always musicians nor are they hard-core classical music fans. In fact, you don't have to be either of the two, as long as you're to be entertained. Thus the showy fan fare as the Johann Strauss Orchestra dresses in ball gowns, audience clapping in participation, all the while Andre plays the violin and waltzes across the stage.

What wonderful imagery too for all the grandparents living in the Midwest who have heard of Andre's traveling Orchestra and have had fantasies of one day attending his concert. For those classical nerds who still don't get it, his concerts are like pop classical music for old people who tune into to PBS.

For those of you who refuse to go see him, don't have the dough, or have never heard or seen one of Andre's concerts there are a host of search results on YouTube. Some of those fun web vids to note.

• Yackety Sax with an orchestra?
  
• Andre meets Gospel
• 3 year-old takes Andre's lead
  
• Michael Flattery's still kickin' it with Andre

You won't see me at the concert but I'll keep you up-to-date of any more fun stories about little old ladies visiting our shop and inquiring if we've ever heard of Andre Rieu. :)

Fiddler Darth Vader Plays Violin

I couldn't resist in pointing out some more pointless pop culture moments relating to all things stringed instruments. My peruse through the Internet brought me this, the shot of the day. Good ole Darth fiddles away on the Dark Side.

[See Vader play some more]

No, unfortunately it doesn't come from the shop as we've been very busy. When the walk in traffic dies down, I'll post an entry of what "busy" really means here around the shop. It'll have an hour by hour breakdown and photos to accompany. It would be cool if I could photographically capture the traffic pattern of our shop on a slow shutter speed with tripod. But, I'm still not that far advanced yet.

Wow, that violin really knocked me away!

Some of the latest viral videos in the stringed instrument world have been hip hop renditions. The emphasis seems more on showmanship over skill. Some are more fun pop culture interpretations such as the Legend of Zelda, Led Zeppelin, or Barbie Girl.

Others are meant to be a cheap form of entertainment to get people's quick fix of laughter. I have a commentary about these various Internet vids lacking content but you can read up on my rant from an earlier post.



The latest video I've managed to find lying somewhere on the web is simply entitled, "Solider knocked out by Violin." No it's not a glorious accompaniment by a violinist as a soldier falls gloriously in the midst of battle. The title says it all.

I'm not too sure who I should pity in this vid: the oblivious victim in the corner or the soon to be smashed violin. Sigh. I suppose you could some how reminisce that it's the same funny scene in Animal House where John Belushi smashes up the guitar. If that sort of creative destruction gets your kicks, be sure to check out the video from a previous post entitled "Death of a Cello". It obviously got some rave reviews with a 92% rating over on MySpace. On the same note of violence, maybe that poor solider should get one of these for Christmas.

Related Posts & Web Vids:
Hip hop renditions
Death of a Cello (Video Link)
Death of a Cello
Barbie Girl
Led Zeppelin
Legend of Zelda

Aqua's "Barbie Girl" gone cello classical

[Aqua, 1997 Single "Barbie Girl"]

I've been a little slow on my commentary and in depth articles. To substitute, a brief mention of a fun video for those classical musicians who dare not listen to pop. Although a month old, the latest video to hit up some interest on social networking sites comes this one off of the MySpace video sharing site.

It's the late 1990's Norwegian-Danish pop band Aqua with "Barbie Girl" , only in a classical tradition. And a one, two, three, four, sets the beat of the lead cellist as all four of them grind away. When that song originally came out, I couldn't stand that annoying high pitch voice and bubblgum dance but strangely enough, that classical rendition wasn't too bad.

• Original Barbie Girl Video
• Classical Barbie Girl
  

Air Violin

Here's an interesting video I found. I would like to coin this device as the very first air violin? It's a much more sophisticated version of the 1980s Nintendo Power Glove.
A better fit perhaps are the gloves that Tom Cruise wears to orchestrally scrub images of crime in Minority Report.
Could this be the prelude to the final form of the air violin? We've already witnessed the
breakdown of the its traditional physical form with groundbreaking industrial designs such as silhouette shaped Yamaha Silent Violins and see through skeletal structures by Ted Brewer. Perhaps the next logical step in the air violin's progress for ethereal performance is when the player's body movements and directions controls the instrument. Who knows, maybe even the mind in the future:)

In case you're wondering where I've been getting these videos, check out Democracy Player.
It works a little bit like RSS readers except they read updates on video uploads and searches from various sites such as YouTube, Bliptv, DailyMotion, etc.

• Air Violin
• Democracy Player (go here to download air violin, if link is having problems)
  

Carbon Fiber Cello Construction

Carbon Fiber is the future

A prophetic vision-from our almighty God, YouTube-shows the details of the coming days.

"Violin shops will be put out of business. Musicians will abandon their decaying wooden Strads. Mass produced, technologically advanced instruments reaching the status of perfection, everyone will play like Paganini once they've traded their souls for cold carbon."

Well, probably not, but in theory it could. After all, I did see an advert in Strings Magazine that had Yo-Yo Ma posing with his brand new Luis & Clark cello #4 and is quoted: "I love this cello". Anyway, a fun post this was as I was absolutely fascinated by how these instruments with different materials and construction processes can mimic the acoustics of the real cello, for now:)

Death of a Cello

As traditional forms of media and entertainment have become fragmented with the arrival of easy upload online videos, so has the mainstream tastes and preferences become more diverse. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, George Lucas described today's Internet content as circus-like and similar to the zeitgeist of the Romans feeding Christians to the Lions.
Stupid pet tricks, karaoke tapes, cartoons; anything obscene, obscure, meant to shock and offend, all of which I think are fine forms of entertainment but I do wish that content like this at least have developed ideas when they're strapped to the budget of a handheld.

For example, a little video titled Death of a Cello seems to be circulating around the MySpace string community. The premise, as the white title blocks explain to us,"What do you do...When the Music Stops." A brief synopsis: we are witness to three kids who take turns blasting away at a cello until no more. If you don't believe me, you can follow the thread of comments at the MySpace Group "Violinists Unite" posting of the video or click onto the earlier link if you have a MySpace.

Give people what they want, as the Roman Emperors did, may mean give the kids some guns so they can shoot out their musical frustration on a such "uncool" instrument. Better yet, there's always some kind of allure of destruction. Sure it was "cool" to see the neck splinter, top pop off, just like the car wrecks that we can't seem to turn away from. But in a matter of seconds, what for? and why? Why such a death of content after a climatic timing of the sound track that ended with some random line, "For the American tourist bastards." It's stuff like this, where I have to wonder, what was the point of it?

Although I found this video to be of cheap amusement, the point is that it was meant to be shared where its true content of destructive entertainment could be realized and appreciated among friends with similar tastes and preferences to its creator. I certainly can't explain to you 'why' these forms of Internet content are the ones in the limelight. Leave that job to a social commentator or talking head on t.v.

Grant it, this blog is about the shop life couldn't resist in a little commentary of how Internet content is affecting the string world.