Get Ready for the Attack of the Robotic Musicians!
Kurt Coble and His Robotic Orchestra to Perform Dec 5th as Part of Free Arts Weekend
(November 19, 2010, White Plains, NY) — As part of Free Arts Weekend, a county-wide extravaganza to be held this year from December 3-5, ArtsWestchester will present a performance by violinist Kurt Coble and his band of 20 robotic instruments on Sunday, December 5th from 2-7 pm at The Arts Exchange, 31 Mamaroneck Avenue, White Plains. Free Arts Weekend includes events at more than 22 cultural sites across Westchester including free admission to museums and historic sites, free films, free concerts and performances, and free art-making workshops for the whole family. For a complete list of Free Arts Weekend events visit www.artswestchester.org.
ArtsWestchester’s presentation of Coble’s robotic band will be a fun intersection of technology and music.
There’s something beguiling about the workings of a machine. Watches have glass faces so we can spy the intricate mechanisms that make the hands move. And, if we open our computers, we uncover a hidden world of intricately connected parts. Our innate curiosity draws us to get closer to machines and see if we can discern how they make their magic.
Some have called the ensemble of 20 robotic instruments “kinetic sculpture,” and writer J. Clyde Willis has referred to it as “a horror show of electrodes and wires that challenges the definition of music.”
In addition to playing, from 2-5 pm, the instruments will be displayed museum style in The Arts Exchange’s Grand Banking Room, so visitors can inspect them, ask Coble questions, and even try their hands at “playing” the instruments remotely through lasers and other devices.
Guests will also witness the interplay between live and robotic music as renowned pianist Vytas Baksys of the Boston Symphony Orchestra accompanies the P.A.M. Band for a set in the afternoon. The day’s finale will begin at 5 pm., as the P.A.M. band supplies the music for the classic 1920’s silent film “Metropolis.”
“People of all ages respond to our P.A.M Band events,” says Coble. “There are the lessons about rhythym, pitch, volume, melody and harmony, and composition that are standard in any music class. We also cover electronics, engineering and innovation.” Perhaps surprisingly, Coble says one of the questions that he gets asked most frequently is why a violinist decided to create a robotic band.
“This all started by accident,” says Coble, a violinist and composer. “About ten years ago, I was working on a children’s puppet show, and a friend asked me if I could wire a contraption to have one of the puppets play a violin. After that I was hooked and kept adding to our ensemble.”
He explains that purchasing simple dc motors from electronic catalogs was the easy part. “It was much harder to fine tune the devices, so that the devices could yield the notes he was looking for and that each pluck of a guitar, or bang of the drum, had just the right pitch and volume.”
Fourteen of the instruments are synchronized together, and six are free standing. A computer program starts the
process by instructing the robots to perform Coble’s original compositions.
Far from detracting from the importance of live musicians, Coble believes discerning listeners of the P.A.M. band have a heightened appreciation for the unique gifts of a professional musician. “The P.A.M. band does sound different, it’s not the same,” he says. “In fine tuning these machines and realizing their limits, I’ve gained a better understanding of how wonderful the human “machine” is.
