The Waseda Flutist Robot No.4 Refined IV: From a musical partner to a musical teaching tool

Abstract

Up to now, different kinds of musical performance robots have been developed. MPRs are designed to closely reproduce the human organs involved during the playing of musical instruments. Our research on the Waseda Flutist Robot has been focused on clarifying the human motor control from an engineering point of view. As a result, the Waseda Flutist Robot No. 4 Refined IV (WF-4RIV) is able of playing the flute nearly similar to an intermediate player. Thanks to the human-like design and the advanced technical skills displayed by the WF-4RIV, novel ways of musical education can be conceived. In this paper; the General Transfer Skill System (GTSS) is implemented on the flutist robot, towards enabling the automated transfer of technical skills from the robot to flutist beginners. A set of experiments are carried out to verify the evaluation and interaction modules of the GTSS. From the experimental results, the robot is able of quantitatively evaluating the performance of beginners, and automatically recognizing the melodies performed by them.