The Cyborg Drummer Has Arrived

For as advanced as prosthetics have become, nothing beats the human hand when it comes to playing music. Well, until now at least: A new robotic prosthesis designed by Prof. Gil Weinberg, founding director of the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology, can not only keep a beat alongside a human hand, it can improvise its own.

The prosthesis was designed for a drummer named Jason Barnes, who lost his right arm below the elbow after being electrocuted two years ago. Barnes had originally built his own prosthesis, but it could do little more than hold a drum stick, and required him to essentially move his whole arm up and down without any real hand control.

It wasn't a perfect solution, which is where Weinberg, who described himself in a phone call as a "musician more than anything else," comes in. Having previously developed robot percussionists, Weinberg set out to develop a prosthesis that would give Barnes drumming control again. First, he developed a robotic prosthesis that is controlled by Barnes's biceps.

“Now I can flex and send signals to a computer that tightens or loosens the stick and controls the rebound,” said Barnes in a statement.

But things got more interesting when Weinberg added a second drum stick into the mix. Now Barnes can play with one stick in his human hand, with a second stick following along to the rhythm, while a third can fill in with computer-improvisation that's computed based on the rhythm of the other two sticks. In essence, Weinberg helped turn Barnes into a three-handed drummer.

"I think [the potential] is limitless," Weinberg told me. "I'm very excited about actually helping someone with a disability to become actually better than his teacher."

Robots and music do seem to go hand in hand. Witness, for example, the sheer, spectacular brilliance of a robot band playing "Ace of Spades." And while it's true that music without soul—that human element, if you will—is often terrible, robots that can play notes perfectly do certainly have a leg up on some musicians out there. But Weinberg said that the goal isn't for robots to take musicians' or composers' jobs.

"There are some people actually working on algorithmic composition. But I'm not interested in that at all. I think we're far away from that," he said. "That's not what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to enhance humans."

To that end, the project is also about understanding how robotics can interface with the human mind. "I think the goal is to learn more about the brain, how we create, how we improvise," Weinberg said. And if that means smashing out some three-handed solos along the way, all the better.