Cornell students Charong Chen and Siyu Zhan have managed to come up with an electric keyboard that can create and playback its own composition. All the user would have to do is select between two moods – happy and tender which helps determine the song’s tempo, play a couple of notes and the keyboard will fill in the blanks. There is also a “training” mode in which the user will play a melody in order to “train” the keyboard to create permutations of that melody. Playing longer would give the keyboard more information to work with which will allow the keyboard to come up with better compositions.
To achieve this, Chen and Zhan have taken a 23-key piano that communicates with a microcontroller with a trio of encoders and with a composing algorithm on board. It also connects to a number pad where users can set the tempo and choose its operational mode, i.e. training mode or a preset mode or reset the entire sequence. We have to admit that it is pretty darn cool but just don’t expect to win any Grammys with it. Check out the video above for a demonstration of the gadget in action.
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