Ankitha Vasudev – Looking Outwards – 10

Orchestrion is a computerized band that was programmed and created by Eric Singer in 2010. Singer is a Brooklyn-based musician and technologist who founded SingerBots and LEMUR – a group of artists and technologists who create robotic musical instruments. Orchestrion consists of a set of automated musical instruments that are mechanically equipped to perform a composition.

I find this project interesting because the instruments in orchestrion can play anything that is composed for them. This means that a musician composes a song on basic production software, but instead of playing the notes back, the program activates the physical playing actions on the orchestrion. The video below shows the Lido Orchestrion, which was built for a nightclub in Paris and consists of 45 automated instruments. 

In 2009, Singer attended Carnegie Mellon as an undergrad— and founded SingerBots, a company fully dedicated to building robotic music instruments. Singer beleives that musicality and infallibility are the two priorities for an orchestrion, so that they sound good and do not make mistakes. I agree with his belief that robotic infallibility could create a lively performance, contrasting to others’ beliefs.