Written by Bedirhan Cinar
Friday, 23 April 2010 00:00
Last September, we wrote about Paul Nenflídio's electric berimbau, where the cabaca was replaced by a series of pickups and the berimbau was played by a person. Berimbo, the first robotic berimbau, goes the opposite route. Keeping all of the natural components of a berimbau (even the caxixi!), the only thing that changes is that it is played entirely by machine. Even more impressive is (based on the YouTube description below) that Berimbo does not need any programming. It plays by "ear"!
This is the first Robotic Berimbau of the world, it doesn´t just mimic or emulate the original instrument, it´s the real deal, it executes with precision and perfection every movement like it were played by a real musician. It doesn´t need any programming , score reading or MIDI. It has embedded artificial intelligence to allow it plays from hearing. You Just play a real berimbau in front of it, it captures the music in real time and stores it in it´s memory. This is a five years long project conceived by Ivan Monsão and Paulo Libonati from Salvador Bahia-Brazil. Enjoy it!
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