Can Musical Machines Be Expressive? 449

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01477 byguest on 30 September 2021 2019 LEONARDO, Vol. 52, No.5,pp.448–454, 448 ABSTRACT Can MusicalMachinesBeExpressive? l a r e n e g subtle variations of these musical parameters. This- perspec often music, thoughtofof function emotion,a as listenerto the through of piece a of meaning the expresses former per a view, this In performance. expressive of standings under contemporary mainstream with resonates nuance complex or design programming. ing, articulation, timbre and dynamics—all of which require expression—phras human with associated music-making the present day to increase control over the subtle aspects of as well as era modern early the from instruments tomated forexpression isevidentattempts the in by designers of au - concern This music. the creating in involved is performer human no since counterintuitive, seem might that notion sized the capacity of their instruments to be “expressive”—a emphahave- theorists and designers era, modern early the Since the development of automated musical instruments in roboticmusicalinstruments. and contemporary Engramelle’s France cylinder-driveninstrumentsfromeighteenth-century of“expressive”automatedinstruments:Diderotand studies inthehistory explorestwocase from thoseofhuman-operatedinstruments.Thisarticle nature—their idiomaticmovementsandsounds,whichremaindistinct these instrumentsisbestunderstoodasaproductoftheirmechanical ispresent.Theexpressivepotentialof the factthatnohumanperformer allows ustoseeautomaticinstrumentsascapableofexpressiondespite centered understandingofexpression—an“intransitive”perspective Alistener- their instrumentsseemmorelikeexpressivehumanperformers. instruments adheretotheseideas,increasingsonicnuancemake designersofrobotic of automatedmusic,andmanycontemporary Transitive ideas theoriesofexpressiondominatedeighteenth-century How canmusicproducedbyautomatedtechnologiesbeexpressive? with thisissue. See www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/leon/52/5 forsupplementalfilesassociated Email: [email protected]. University, 81 George Street, New Brunswick, 08901, U.S.A. NJ Rebecca Cypess (educator), Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers Email: University, Steven The understanding of “expression” as control over sonic over of control “expression”understanding as The

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R A C C E B E - - - for missing the “human factor” inperformance. up make will nothingtransmission, of act an expressionas understand we as expressivity.longHowever,of pursuitas in nuance sonic for capabilities instruments’ their creased in- haveinstruments robotic of Designers [4]. instruments tion. Similar objections are applied to contemporary robotic emo lacked machines these that was issue underlying the control, dynamic of lack as such nuance, sonic on focused be as expressive as human performers. While these critiques to automated instruments, suggesting that they could never at home environment. inthis instruments could be transmitters of emotion was very much tially mechanical in nature. The ideathat automated musical essen are machines human-built and beings human both machine technology in eighteenth-centuryinformed France, held which that philosophy, materialist The listener. the and composer the between communication direct lowing al by performer human fallible the replace could barrels pinned by controlledAutomated organs [2,3]. (1775) melle the and the in scribed de- is approach This tradition. French the in expression of accuracy and subtlety in timing, for timing to was a view vital a means with instruments their designed France century sion. Builders of automated instruments inlate-eighteenth- oftransitiveclearly theories with articulated expresdesign - instrument automated in advances technological coupled Enlightenment French the of writers for telling, is Diderot by ofvirtue that role that music acquiresis its value” [1]. it and communication, emotional of act an in term middle the Musicisemotion. expresses it because emotion mains essentially that of Rousseau and Diderot:re view musicpopular the evokes aesthetics, Romantic on heaped been has that skepticism the all “Despite position: this marizes listener. Roger Scruton’s article in the ing or emotion totransmitted be from the performer to the “transitive,”as understood be maytive mean - takes it since p y C But even in the eighteenth century, some writers objected Denis and Rousseau Jean-Jacques cites Scruton That S S E Tonotechnie https://doi.org/10.1162/leon_a_01477 Mémoires mathématiquesMémoires of Marie-Dominique-Joseph Engra Marie-Dominique-Joseph of Grove Dictionary sum- by Diderot (1748) Diderot by ©2017 ISAST - - - - - Other, less dominant understandings, however, yield for a cylinder-driven mechanical organ, which would allow a theory of “intransitive” expression, in which meaning any piece to be heard in the manner intended by its com- is constructed by the listener and does not depend on the poser: Composers would inscribe their own understanding presence of “emotional communication” initiated by a hu- of the music—especially its mouvement—within the cylinder, man performer. Max Paddison describes a shift in thinking bypassing the fallible performer entirely. Diderot explained in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries: Critics and that the application of automated technology to music could scholars moved from a transitive understanding of expres- augment its emotional impact, not detract from it. Far from sion to the idea that musical expression is a product of a rendering music impersonal, the synthesis of the human mimetic experience [5]. This notion of mimesis resonates composer with the mechanical organ would enable a more with contemporary theories of embodiment, which see mu- faithful, and thus more expressive, performance. Ultimately, sical gestures reperformed in the mind of the listener [6]. he claimed, the cylinder-driven organ represented a synthesis A theory of expression as a listener-generated phenomenon of the human performer and the chronomêtre, which, signifi- circumvents arguments against mechanical performances. cantly, he described as “two distinct machines” [12]. Intransitivity does not force us to understand machines as The characterization of both the performer and the time- capable of transmitting human emotions; rather, listeners an- keeping device as “machines” might seem strange today, thropomorphize mechanical performers, imbuing inanimate but it was consistent with the materialist philosophy of the objects with human characteristics. eighteenth century, which viewed the workings of the hu- While a thorough survey of expression is impossible in this man being, both body and soul, as functions of mechanics. context, in this article we explore two case studies in the his- This approach, based in the rationalist idea of the Enlight- tory of “expressive” automated instruments, comparing the enment that all aspects of human life could be understood aesthetics of cylinder-driven instruments from the French through experimentation and reason, emphasized the close Enlightenment with the ideals of contemporary musical ro- relationship between animate beings and self-animating botics. Although the French writers articulated a transitive machinery [13]. While such ideas had been in circulation perspective, their materialism opens the way to a theory of in both popular and learned culture earlier in the century, intransitive expression that may be fruitfully applied to con- the classic statement on materialism, the treatise L’homme temporary robotics: Automated instruments are capable of machine, by Julien Offray de La Mettrie, appeared in print producing and applying their own language of mechatronic in the same year as Diderot’s es- expression. say on automated organs [14]. La Mettrie argued that human be- Expression in the Automated Instruments ings were themselves machines, in of Diderot and Engramelle which all bodily and intellectual Timing was a crucial parameter of expression in eighteenth- processes were connected, and century French performance. Interpretation could be sub- that natural philosophers could jective, but determination of a work’s mouvement (tempo, achieve new knowledge of life rubato and character) required attention to the details of the through experimentation with notation and its correct realization according to the inten- automata. Likewise, Diderot sug- tions of the composer [7,8]. François Couperin explained the gested that automated keyboard difficulties that performers had in deciphering the mouve- instruments constituted a fusion ment of French music: “In my view there are defects in our of mechanical timepieces on the style of writing music which correspond to the manner of one hand and the expressive hu- writing our language. That is, we write differently from the man composer on the other; both, way we perform” [9]. Criticisms of live performers addressed he claimed, were “machines.” Like the inability of performers to understand, interpret and ren- humanoid automata, which simu- der the music using the subtleties of timing that gave it its lated life through programmed distinctive means of expression. motion, automated musical in- French inventors developed mechanical timepieces to reg- struments encoded live music to ulate the basic tempos of French music. These chronomêtres simulate the ideal performance of (Fig. 1), precursors to the metronome [10], were intended to a composer, thus forming a musi- overcome the difficulties of transmitting tempo from com- cal contribution to the materialist poser to performer, but they resulted in a loss of the temporal project [15]. Indeed, when Marie- flexibility that was essential to the French style. Noting this Dominique-Joseph Engramelle lack of flexibility, Denis Diderot, in his Mémoires mathéma- tiques (1748), remarked that “the only good chronometer is an experienced, tasteful musician, who has read the score carefully, and who knows how to keep time” [11]. Fig. 1. Chronomêtre from Étienne Loulié, But Diderot was not satisfied to let performers interpret Élémens, ou principes de la musique music on their own. He proposed, in the same essay, a plan (Amsterdam: Estienne Roger, 1698).

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01477 by guest on 30 September 2021 Fig. 3. Jacques Vaucanson’s three automata: the flute player, the duck and the pipe-and-tabor player. From Vaucanson, An Account of the Mechanism of an Automaton, or, Image Playing on the German-flute: As was Presented in a Memoire to the Gentlemen of the Royal-Academy of Sciences at Paris (London, 1742). Harvard University, Houghton Library, Hyde Mus. 359.10.

ness in execution that even the best musician could not at- tain, because it would be without error. . . . [The cylinders] Fig. 2. Frontispiece of Marie-Dominique-Joseph Engramelle, La Tonotechnie. The workers seated on the left are pinning a cylinder would transmit [these works] for posterity in their purity” for use in a mechanical organ. On the right is a harpsichord and a flute- [18]. But the technician responsible for pinning the cylin- playing automaton (probably in imitation of Vaucanson’s flute player), der would have to be a musician who displayed the “quality both operated by automated cylinders. of taste that gives music its interest.” Without it, the music rendered by the automated instrument “would be cold, me- presented a more complete plan for cylinder-driven instru- chanical, insipid, and inanimate” [19]. ments in his Tonotechnie of 1775, he noted that his technology On one level, Diderot and Engramelle clearly viewed could be applied both to mechanical musical instruments expression in transitive terms. Their goal was to create a ma- and to automata in the form of human beings or animals chine that would transmit all the subtleties of the French (Fig. 2) [16]. style directly from the composer to the listener, obviating Jacques de Vaucanson, a one-time student of medicine and the need for additional (inadequate) interpreters and ensur- anatomy, was the most famous inventor of automata in the ing that no performance practice would be lost to time. It is eighteenth century; his automated flute player was one of true that the programmer of the cylinder needed to possess three automata that he displayed in Paris in 1738 (Fig. 3). In good musical skills, but if the programmer were to check the pamphlet that he submitted to the Académie Royale des the results with the composer, there would be little room Sciences, Vaucanson stressed that the construction of this for error. This was how Engramelle collaborated with the flute player required knowledge of biology and mechanical composer Claude Balbastre. In a chapter he contributed to technology, as well as good musical taste. The members of the a treatise on organ-building, Engramelle displayed a chart Académie agreed, praising not just Vaucanson’s technological for a pinned cylinder of a “Romance” by Balbastre, claim- feat but also the flute player’s musicianship: “The author has ing that “not only did [Balbastre] take the trouble to notate discerned how to . . . imitat[e] through art everything that a his piece on paper, as is seen engraved here, but he per- person is obliged to do” [17]. formed it many times, and his performance was followed While Engramelle boasted of the usefulness of his technol- with a watch that had a second-hand” (Fig. 4) [20]. Engra- ogy for automata, his real interest lay in the use of cylinders melle saw the accuracy of timing enabled by his technique to preserve the performance style of composers. As he wrote, of pinning cylinders as a principal key to the transmission “One may say that a well-made cylinder-driven machine of emotion. would render musical works with a cleanness and a correct Yet these statements on musical expression from the

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01477 by guest on 30 September 2021 being could equal it either with his fingers or with his tongue. Indeed it would excite astonishment, but it would never move you; and having heard it several times, and understood its construction, you would even cease to be astonished. Accordingly, those who wish to maintain their superiority over the machine, and wish to touch people, must play each piece with its proper fire [21]. In this classic articulation of transitive expression, Quantz acknowledged the virtuosity of the automaton in tempo and timing but considered all machines incapable of moving the emotions of the listener. These criticisms of early automata have shaped the work of designers of contemporary robotic instruments. Godfried- Willem Raes, founder of the “Man and Machine” orchestra at the Logos Foundation in Belgium, explains that “musical expression—apart from the precise placement of tones in time, or overall control of the wind pressure—is left out al- together from [the designs of early musical automata] which is what explains the very mechanical character of the music produced” [22]. Maes, Raes and Rogers concur, explaining, “the mechanics [of musical automata] were discrete . . . but nuances, dynamics, and timbral possibilities—and thus the expressive musical potential of these instruments—were extremely limited” [23]. Contemporary robotic instruments possess more ad- vanced technical capabilities than eighteenth-century

Fig. 4. Engramelle’s map for the pinned cylinder of automata, including computer control of sophisticated elec- Claude Balbastre’s “Romance.” trical and pneumatic motors. Many designers agree that, because of these technological features, accuracy in timing can French Enlightenment display more than simply a transitive be taken for granted—but these designers still maintain that perspective, as they understood not only the chronomêtre, “true” expressivity, equated with the number of controllable but also the human performer, as a machine. This formula- sonic parameters and their resolution, remains a challenge. tion paves the way for a new perspective on the concept of Jim Murphy has stated this most clearly: “Expressivity, in this expression—one rooted as much in the perception of the lis- context, refers to the ability of a mechatronic musical sys- tener as in the intentions of the composer. In the materialist tem to affect a wide range of musical parameters” [24]. Solis philosophy, the automated organ could be just as expressive and Takanishi similarly describe expression as one of their as a human musician, if not more so, because it could pro- goals in developing humanoid robotic wind instruments at duce music in its ideal sounded form. Nevertheless, it was up Waseda University: “Regarding the development of auto- to the listener to decode and interpret those sounds, making mated machines, we expect that novel ways of expression sense of them as music. This materialist understanding of will be introduced thanks to the simplicity of their mechani- automated music thus presents a precedent for a theory of cal design and the implementation of music engineering and intransitive expression in robotic music today. artificial intelligence” [25]. Such descriptions of expressivity in robotic instruments Musical Robots, Expression and Sonic Nuance conflate musical expression and sonic nuance. But this approach maintains a strictly transitive understanding of Like Diderot and Engramelle, many designers of contem- expression. By considering music-making an inherently hu- porary robotic instruments maintain that sonic nuance man activity, the transitive ideology denies that automata represents the key to expressive musical performances. or robots can render expressive performances. In this view, Even during the eighteenth century, however, musicians the goal of robotic instrument designers must be to increase and theorists were skeptical of music produced by “soulless” the capabilities of their instruments, thus enabling perfor- machines. In 1752, Johann Joachim Quantz described Vau- mances that are ever closer to those of human performers. canson’s mechanical flute player as virtuosic—especially in Yet these robotic instruments will never be viewed as capable its timing—but claimed nevertheless that it was devoid of of transmitting emotion in the same way as human perform- human expression: ers. However, as noted above, the materialist philosophy sug- With skill a musical machine [i.e. Vaucanson’s flute player] gests that machines and human musicians may not be as could be constructed that would play certain pieces with far apart as the standard theory of expression suggests. We a quickness and exactitude so remarkable that no human suggest using the materialist approach as a springboard for

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01477 by guest on 30 September 2021 a new understanding of autonomous performances—one in edge of the specific parametric controls of the instrument which self-playing instruments may evoke meaning on their and of the instrument’s own capacities and limitations. own through their interaction with the listener. Robotic instruments are capable of such musical gestures as hypervirtuosic speed, extremely complex rhythms, Transitive vs. Intransitive Views articulations such as rapid trills on the lowest and highest of Musical Expression note of the instrument, and algorithmic control. Robotic Rather than viewing music as an act of expression trans- instruments also possess their own idiosyncrasies and limi- mitted from performer to listener, contemporary studies of tations, such as microvariations in timing caused by physi- musical expression have offered an “intransitive” perspective cal forces including friction and gravity [30]. Attainment [26]. This view, rooted in phenomenology, focuses on the of mechatronic expressivity in music composed for robotic listener’s construction of musical expression by embodying instruments requires conscious use of and reflection on the the actions of musical performance. Max Paddison describes mechanical nature of these instruments, rather than the ret- a shift from a transitive (expressive) to an intransitive (mi- rofitting of music that was originally conceived with human metic/embodied) understanding in the work of Hanslick, performers in mind [31]. Schopenhauer and Adorno, writing, This reflection on mechanization dates back to the age of Diderot and Engramelle. Annette Richards discusses the Mimesis can be understood as a manner of following self-reflexive nature of Mozart’s F-minor fantasy, K.608, for closely the movement of the musical work as both an mechanical organ, which “is impossible for a single organ- identification with it and a reenactment of its process as it ist to play as notated. Its superhuman virtuosity is that of a unfolds—that is to say, of its form, as structure. This is both machine, and indeed it celebrates the wonderful mechanical a somatic adaptation to the movement of the music and, potential of the organ clock” [32]. Likewise, Conlon Nan- in the case of what Adorno calls “mimetic understanding” carrow’s Studies for Player Piano display awareness of the (mimetisches Verstehen), a cognitive process of reenactment mechanical nature of the instrument. As David Bruce ex- as experience [27]. plains, Nancarrow’s works exploit their mechanical nature In this view, listeners create musical meaning based on “most obviously in the use of superhuman speeds, but also their interpretation and embodiment of sensory stimuli. in the use of a limited range of repertoire consisting of pulse- Shifting the focus from performance to perception means determined rhythms, symmetrical forms—most things, in that “humanness” in musical performance emerges from fact, which oppose the romantic and very human idea of the listener, not the performer. This perspective problema- ‘free expression’ ” [33]. tizes the notion that human performers are inherently more The visual component of robotic instruments provides an- expressive than autonomous instruments. Performances by other avenue for expression [34]. Some robotic instrument humans and robots may be different; however, each is ca- designers have sought to increase the expressivity of their pable of evoking expression. Understanding the nature of instruments by designing them to appear humanoid, much this difference allows us to see the potential for robots to be like Vaucanson’s flute player. Weinberg describes the impe- “mechatronically expressive.” tus for the anthropomorphic design of his robotic percus- sionist, Haile, stating that he wished to “encourage familiar Mechatronic Expressivity and expressive interactions with human players” [35]. Other Gil Weinberg and Scott Driscoll coined the term “robotic anthropomorphic robotic instruments include Compressor- musicianship” to describe the performance practice of musi- head, Captured by Robots, Z Machines and instruments de- cal robots [28]. According to Mason Bretan and Weinberg, veloped at Waseda University’s Humanoid Robotics Institute. Humans tend to anthropomorphize even nonhumanoid The goal of robotic musicianship is not only to imitate hu- robots [36]; therefore, a listener may imbue a nonhumanoid man creativity or replace it, but also to supplement it and robotic instrument with human-like qualities. For example, enrich the musical experience for humans. . . . Combining the tangents that change pitch on the Poly-tangent Automatic computers with physical sound generators to create sys- multi-Monochord (PAM), built by Expressive Machines Mu- tems capable of rich, acoustic sound production . . . and ex- sical Instruments (EMMI), are often referred to as fingers pressive physical behaviors through sound accompanying (Fig. 5). Other visual elements can be added to robotic in- body movements is an attractive venture for many artists. struments, such as the inclusion of LEDs on EMMI’s MARIE Additionally, there is artistic potential in the nonhuman and TAPI robots (Color Plate B) [37]. LEDs can amplify the characteristics of machines including increased precision, movements of these instruments by visualizing them. freedom of physical design, and the ability to perform fast The aspects of robotic expressivity described above have computations [29]. focused on either sonic or visual elements. The theory of Bretan and Weinberg describe musical robots not merely “affective computing” represents a holistic framework for in terms of their imitation of human capabilities, but also in understanding how machines can be expressive. Rosalind terms of their ability to enrich listeners’ musical experiences Picard defines affective computing as “computing that relates through a combination of computer control and acoustic to, arises from, or deliberately influences emotions” [38]. Ac- sound production. Composing for robots requires knowl- cording to Picard, the development of computing has been

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01477 by guest on 30 September 2021 Conclusion Musical automata were developed in the eighteenth century as curiosities, but they also had a serious purpose: In keeping with materialist philosophy, automata allowed theorists and artisans to assert a close connection between human beings and machines. For Diderot and Engramelle, mechanical organs enhanced the musical experience of listeners by Fig. 5. Mechatronic “tangents” viewed as fingers on EMMI’s Poly-tangent Automatic multi-Monochord (PAM) robotic string instrument. (© Steven Kemper) capturing the “correct” timing intended by the composer. Because of their accuracy in representing the ideals of the composer, mechanical instruments were considered capable focused on “intelligence,” but, she says, “If computers are of transmitting expressive meaning from mechanical per- going to work effectively with humans, they need to inter- former to human listener. Yet even during the late eighteenth act with us not just on an intellectual level, but also on an century, critics viewed automata as “soulless” and therefore emotional level” [39]. as incapable of expression. Picard argues that even though computers may not pos- Many designers of contemporary robotic instruments con- sess emotions themselves, they can express emotions as long tinue to feel constrained by these criticisms and have sought as they have channels over which to communicate, such as to make their instruments more expressive by increasing the a voice or images on a screen [40]. They can also develop level of sonic nuance that enables instruments to approximate their own emotions: “Since computers presently have differ- human performance. Although contemporary robotic instru- ent needs and behaviors than humans, why should they not ments are much more capable of sonic nuance than their be allowed to develop the emotions that suit these needs, as eighteenth-century mechanical predecessors, the inherent opposed to being given a set of our emotions that does not problem of a machine’s ability to transmit meaning persists. necessarily serve them well?” [41]. Materialist philosophy presents an alternative model. In The idiosyncratic actions of robotic musical instruments equating human performers with machines, Diderot opened are capable of evoking emotional responses in listeners and the way for a theory of “intransitive” expression, which al- of demonstrating the idiomatic emotional characteristics of lows us to move away from the notion that expressive per- the instruments themselves. This relationship is highlighted formances require a human performer to transmit emotion as robotic instruments diverge from mimicry of human per- or meaning. An intransitive experience allows the listener formers and instead explore their own vocabulary and limita- to embody the actions of robotic instruments and to gener- tions. For example, the “struggle” of a robotic striking arm to ate expressive meaning based on the instruments’ sonic and perform a hypervirtuosic rhythmic passage is translated to visual gestures. Robotic instrument designers may build ca- the rest of the instrument, causing the instrument to shake, pabilities into their instruments that enable a greater level of its materials to strain and mechanical noises to increase. Dis- sonic nuance; however, these parameters do not necessarily cussing his robotic percussion instrument MahaDeviBot, imply a more expressive performance. The most “expressive” Ajay Kapur describes how imperfections can “humanize” a performances of robotic instruments are those that fully ex- robotic instrument. He writes, “MahaDeviBot seems to have a ploit their mechatronic identity. personality—albeit one that changes each time it was [sic] reassembled—in its imperfections” [42]. Both the visual and aural aspects of this struggle can provoke meaningful reactions for the listener. Audiences may feel anxious about the potential for failure or may “root” for the instrument to have a successful performance. One evocative example of this is the Robotic Church developed by Chico MacMurtrie/Amorphic Robot Works (ARW) (Fig. 6). The performance consists of 35 pneumatic robots. Some are humanoid and some are not, and their actions range from performing music to skirting along the floor to perpetually climbing and descending a rope. The audience sits among these robots, connecting with them as an ensemble and as in- dividuals. The development of each instrument’s visual and sonic identity, self-reflexive with re- Fig. 6. The Robotic Church by Chico MacMurtrie/Amorphic Robot Works (ARW), spect to that instrument’s capabilities and limita- installed in a former Norwegian Seaman’s Church in Red Hook, Brooklyn. tions, allows it to “express” itself. (© Chico MacMurtrie. Photo: Robert Wright.)

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01477 by guest on 30 September 2021 References and Notes 22 Godfried-Willem Raes, “Expression Control in Automated Musical Instruments”: www.logosfoundation.org/g_texts/expression-con 1 Roger Scruton, “Expression: II: The Nature of Musical Expres- trol.html (accessed 20 May 2016). sion,” in Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online (Oxford Univ. Press): www.oxfordmusiconline.com.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu 23 Laura Maes, Godfried-Willem Raes and Troy Rogers, “The Man and /subscriber/article/grove/music/09138 (accessed 21 May 2016). Machine Robot Orchestra at Logos,” Computer Music Journal 35, No. 4, 28–48 (2011) pp. 28–29. 2 Denis Diderot, Mémoires sur différens sujets de mathématiques (Paris: Durand, Pissot, 1748). 24 Jim Murphy, “Expressive Musical Robots: Building, Evaluating, and Interfacing with an Ensemble of Mechatronic Instruments,” Ph.D. 3 Marie-Dominique-Joseph Engramelle, La tonotechnie, ou l’art de no- diss. (Victoria University of Wellington, 2014) p. 1. ter les cylindres (Paris: Delaguette, 1775; facsimile ed., Paris: Hermann Éditeurs, 1993). 25 Jorge Solis and Atsuo Takanishi, “Wind Instrument Playing Human- oid Robots,” in Jorge Solis and Kia Ng, eds., Musical Robots and Inter- 4 The term “robotic” is used in this article to describe instruments that active Multimodal Systems (Berlin: Springer, 2011) pp. 195–213, p. 211. rely on computer control of electrical motors to produce sound and is a term used by many musicians, designers and audiences. Some 26 Scruton [1]. in the engineering community would describe these instruments as 27 Paddison [5] p. 141. “mechatronic,” reserving the term “robotic” to imply autonomous/ feedback-based control. 28 Gil Weinberg and Scott Driscoll, “Toward Robotic Musicianship,” Computer Music Journal 30, No. 4, 28–45 (2006). 5 Max Paddison, “Mimesis and the Aesthetics of Musical Expression,” Music Analysis 29, Nos. 1–3, 126–148 (2010) p. 126. 29 Mason Bretan and Gil Weinberg, “A Survey of Robotic Musician- ship,” Communications of the ACM 59, No. 5, 100–109 (2016) p. 101. 6 Claude Cadoz and Marcelo Wanderley, “Gesture—Music,” in Mar- celo Wanderley and M. Battier, eds., Trends in Gestural Control of 30 Ajay Kapur et al., “Collaborative Composition for Musical Robots,” Music (Paris: IRCAM, 2000) p. 78. Journal of Science and Technology of the Arts 1, No. 1, 48–52 (2009) p. 49. 7 Mary Cyr, Style and Performance for Bowed String Instruments in French Baroque Music (London and New York: Routledge, 2012) pp. 31 The term “mechatronic” (mechanical/electronic) refers to how ro- 85–106. botic instruments are controlled, as opposed to how musical automata are controlled (mechanically). 8 Susan McClary, “Temporality and Ideology: Qualities of Motion in Seventeenth-Century French Music,” in Susan McClary, ed., Struc- 32 Richards [21] p. 385. tures of Feeling in Seventeenth-Century Cultural Expression (Toronto: 33 David Bruce, “The Manic Mechanic,” The Musical Times 138, No. University of Toronto Press, 2013) p. 322. 1850, 9–12 (1997) p. 9. 9 François Couperin, L’art de toucher le clavecin (Paris: L’auteur and Le 34 Weinberg and Driscoll [28] p. 28. Sieur Foucaut, 1717) pp. 39–40. Trans. Rebecca Cypess. 35 Weinberg and Driscoll [28] p. 31. 10 Albert Cohen, Music in the French Royal Academy of Sciences: A Study in the Evolution of Musical Thought (Princeton: Princeton 36 Susan R. Fussell et al., “How People Anthropomorphize Robots,” in Univ. Press, 2014) pp. 68–70. Proceedings of the 3rd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Hu- man Robot Interaction, (HRI ’08) (2008) pp. 145–152. 11 Diderot [2] p. 194. 37 Troy Rogers, Steven Kemper and Scott Barton, “MARIE: Monochord- 12 Diderot [2] p. 195. Aerophone Robotic Instrument Ensemble,” in Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expres- 13 Jessica Riskin, “The Defecating Duck, or, the Ambiguous Origins of sion (NIME) (Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, 2015) Artificial Life,” Critical Inquiry 29, No. 4, 599–633 (2003). pp. 408–411. 14 Julien Offray de La Mettrie,Machine Man and Other Writings, Ann 38 Rosalind W. Picard, Affective Computing (Cambridge, MA: MIT Thomson, trans., Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy Press, 2000) p. 3. (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996). 39 Picard [38] p. 47. 15 Rebecca Cypess, “ ‘It Would Be without Error’: Automated Technol- ogy and the Pursuit of Correct Performance in the French Enlight- 40 Picard [38] p. 56. enment,” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 142, No. 1, 1–29 (2017). 41 Picard [38] p. 48. 16 Engramelle [3]. 42 Kapur [30] p. 50. 17 Jacques de Vaucanson, Le mécanisme du fluteur automate, présenté à Messieurs de l’Académie Royale des Sciences (Paris: Chez Jacques Manuscript received 9 June 2016. Guerin, 1738) p. 20. Trans. Rebecca Cypess.

18 Engramelle [3] pp. 62–63. Trans. Rebecca Cypess. Steven Kemper is associate professor of music at the Ma- 19 Engramelle [3] pp. 2–3. Trans. Rebecca Cypess. son Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. He is also cofounder of Expressive Machines Musical Instruments. 20 Marie-Dominique-Joseph Engramelle, “Des orgues à cylindres,” in François Bedos de Celles, L’art du facteur d’orgues (Paris: L’imprime- rie de L. Delatour, 1778) p. 620. Trans. Rebecca Cypess. Rebecca Cypess is associate professor of music at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. She is the author 21 Translated in Annette Richards, “Automatic Genius: Mozart and the Mechanical Sublime,” Music & Letters 80, No. 3, 366–389 (1999) of Curious and Modern Inventions: Instrumental Music as p. 383. Discovery in Galileo’s Italy (University of Chicago Press, 2016).

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color Color Plate B: Can Musical Machines Be Expressive? Views from the Enlightenment and Today

LEDs used to visualize sound on EMMI’s Monochord-Aerophone Robotic Instrument Ensemble (MARIE). (© Steven Kemper) (See article in this issue by Steven Kemper and Rebecca Cypess.)

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