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The Beatbots: A Musician-Informed Multi-Robot Percussion Quartet

Isabella Pu, Jeff Snyder, Naomi Ehrich Leonard

TL;DR

Beatbots presents a musician-informed, multi-robot percussion quartet designed to leverage robot strengths for novel rhythmic textures rather than mimic human performance. The system is co-created with three musicians through an informed prototyping process, featuring four spherical robots, an arena-based setup, leader-follower coordination, and a generative percussion vocabulary with both authentic rhythms and controlled randomness. A public demonstration and a mixed-methods user study (N=28 surveyed) reveal broad appreciation for the playfulness, aesthetics, and unconventional music, with distinct responses shaped by expertise. The work proposes five design principles for future robot music systems, emphasizing multi-sensory experiences, playfulness, interactive control, leveraging robot strengths, and audience-aware design, aiming to guide the development of robot-based musical performances and interfaces.

Abstract

Artistic creation is often seen as a uniquely human endeavor, yet robots bring distinct advantages to music-making, such as precise tempo control, unpredictable rhythmic complexities, and the ability to coordinate intricate human and robot performances. While many robotic music systems aim to mimic human musicianship, our work emphasizes the unique strengths of robots, resulting in a novel multi-robot performance instrument called the Beatbots, capable of producing music that is challenging for humans to replicate using current methods. The Beatbots were designed using an ``informed prototyping'' process, incorporating feedback from three musicians throughout development. We evaluated the Beatbots through a live public performance, surveying participants (N=28) to understand how they perceived and interacted with the robotic performance. Results show that participants valued the playfulness of the experience, the aesthetics of the robot system, and the unconventional robot-generated music. Expert musicians and non-expert roboticists demonstrated especially positive mindset shifts during the performance, although participants across all demographics had favorable responses. We propose design principles to guide the development of future robotic music systems and identify key robotic music affordances that our musician consultants considered particularly important for robotic music performance.

The Beatbots: A Musician-Informed Multi-Robot Percussion Quartet

TL;DR

Beatbots presents a musician-informed, multi-robot percussion quartet designed to leverage robot strengths for novel rhythmic textures rather than mimic human performance. The system is co-created with three musicians through an informed prototyping process, featuring four spherical robots, an arena-based setup, leader-follower coordination, and a generative percussion vocabulary with both authentic rhythms and controlled randomness. A public demonstration and a mixed-methods user study (N=28 surveyed) reveal broad appreciation for the playfulness, aesthetics, and unconventional music, with distinct responses shaped by expertise. The work proposes five design principles for future robot music systems, emphasizing multi-sensory experiences, playfulness, interactive control, leveraging robot strengths, and audience-aware design, aiming to guide the development of robot-based musical performances and interfaces.

Abstract

Artistic creation is often seen as a uniquely human endeavor, yet robots bring distinct advantages to music-making, such as precise tempo control, unpredictable rhythmic complexities, and the ability to coordinate intricate human and robot performances. While many robotic music systems aim to mimic human musicianship, our work emphasizes the unique strengths of robots, resulting in a novel multi-robot performance instrument called the Beatbots, capable of producing music that is challenging for humans to replicate using current methods. The Beatbots were designed using an ``informed prototyping'' process, incorporating feedback from three musicians throughout development. We evaluated the Beatbots through a live public performance, surveying participants (N=28) to understand how they perceived and interacted with the robotic performance. Results show that participants valued the playfulness of the experience, the aesthetics of the robot system, and the unconventional robot-generated music. Expert musicians and non-expert roboticists demonstrated especially positive mindset shifts during the performance, although participants across all demographics had favorable responses. We propose design principles to guide the development of future robotic music systems and identify key robotic music affordances that our musician consultants considered particularly important for robotic music performance.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 40 sections, 4 figures, 1 table.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related Work
  3. Algorithmic & Generative Percussion Music
  4. Robot Musicianship
  5. Design Method
  6. Informed Prototyping
  7. Robot Choice
  8. Percussion Music
  9. "Arena" Design
  10. Robot Behaviors
  11. User Interface
  12. User Study
  13. Participants
  14. Study Design
  15. Robotic Performance
  16. ...and 25 more sections

Figures (4)

  • Figure 1: Example of four basic patterns provided by M1, a percussionist
  • Figure 2: Example layout of the four robot arenas.
  • Figure 3: Diagram of how robots in the quartet choose their next percussion pattern. Each robot took into account its previous pattern, and all follower robots took into account the leader robot's current pattern.
  • Figure 4: A scene from the live robotic percussion quartet performance.