Violin-Playing Robot

Okay, dammit. It's not just the banjo players that will be losing gigs. Looks like fiddlers had also better keep an eye on their rear-view mirrors.

I'm almost afraid to look at YouTube these days, lest I see an X-ray-reading robot looking back at me...

Lightning Fast Robot Hand

A friend's reaction to the following video:

I bet this thing could do wicked good banjo triplets.

No kidding. This thing could play a banjo faster than Bela Fleck, which is really saying something.

With a bit more development, it's not just musicians that this thing might put out of work -- surgeons could lose a few gigs too.

As Dr. Wes has pointed out, this thing could also have amazing benefits for the differently abled.

This robot hand would be an especially good match with the brain-computer interface described on the 8/9/09 episode of 60 minutes (the good stuff starts at the 15:00 mark).

This is great technology -- especially from the point of view of a precocious geezer who may need some of it one of these days.

Hat tip to Anita Anderson

Capo -- Cool Tool for Musicians or Radiology Residents

If you are a musician, the word "capo" brings to mind the device that we guitar and banjo players clamp on the necks of our instruments to change key.

However, Capo also refers to a new and rather swell Mac program for learning tunes from recordings. Capo does this by playing a torrent of music at a speed slow enough for one to comprehend. Here's the really cool thing: it does this without changing the pitch of the music!

The following screenshot shows Capo playing "Heather Bonne", a swell tune I snagged last week at a jam session at the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes.


As a fiddle player, I learn a lot of tunes from field recordings made at festivals, jam sessions and concerts. Although I'm a quick study, some intricate or especially twisty tunes are a lot easier to learn when slowed down in this way. Then, once I've worked out the notes, I can play along with the original at a slower speed until I've learned it well enough to play it at full speed.

Capo is not the first Mac program to do this job. I've used The Amazing Slow Downer and Transcribe for years. These fine programs work quite well, but their interface clearly shows their original Windows roots. Capo, on the other hand, was born on the Mac, and is simply gorgeous. It also ably meets the classic Mac software test: "Can I use this without reading the instructions?"

How is this relevant to radiology? The fiddler in me would answer, "Bite me -- who cares!" However, the radiology geek in me would point out that music isn't the only thing you can slow down with this application. If I were the sort of person who transcribed lecture notes or speeches, Capo would be a huge help.

I could also imagine using this app for learning other languages. I suspect that Capo would work pretty well in slowing down foreign language broadcasts to a more understandable pace. It may also be useful among native English speakers separated by their common language. As a long-displaced Southerner, I have gotten pretty good at decoding the Uzi-paced speech patterns of Yankees. However, newly displaced immigrants from below the Muffin-Biscuit Line may find Capo handy for this now and then.

But wait, there's more: Capo is currently on sale at half-price. I paid full price when I bought it a while back, but am now considering grabbing a few extra licenses as gifts for deserving pals.

The only thing that would make Capo even better would be to release an iPhone version. I've suggested this to Capo's developer, so don't touch that dial...

The Banjo Rules on Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live was especially excellent this past Saturday, mostly because of host Steve Martin. My favorite moment was when he stepped on stage with his banjo and cut loose with an original song punctuated by some great clawhammer banjo licks.



The icing on the cake was today's New York Times article on this very topic.

What Would Woody Say?

In a further ironic twist, a video clip of Pete Seeger singing This Land is Your Land is now back on YouTube, courtesy of a German news channel. Thanks, N24!



What Would Woody Say about this? Here's a copyright warning he included on his recordings in the early 40's.

This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.

(via John Hodgman)

This Land is Your Land

Pete Seeger has been one of my musical and political heroes for most of my life. Although I've heard him sing this Woody Guthrie song a zillion times, it especially moved me in this Obama Inaugural Celebration performance with Woody's original lyrics:



(via John Hodgman)

Grand Rounds - Vol 5, no. 5

This week's edition of Grand Rounds is up, hosted this week by Pallimed, a hospice and palliative medicine blog.

My contribution to this edition concerns the little-known Banjo Center of the Brain, and is listed in the comment section.  Look for "We need a banjo to OR 3 stat!"

Hoedown Throwdown

This short video was posted to YouTube about 10 days ago by mikehoye, who says:

I got off the subway at Bloor and Yonge last night, and this is what I saw; some buskers with a fiddle and a banjo were playing, and these four other guys just started to pop it and lock it, apparently just for the hell of it. It cheered me right up.

Cheered me up too.

The Banjo Center of the Brain

I've used my banjo in a number of venues, but I've never brought it in to work. Looks like some Nashville neurosurgeons have beat me to it.

Bluegrass legend Eddie Adcock recently underwent brain surgery to treat a hand tremor. During this procedure, his surgeons placed electrodes deep into his brain to stimulate the thalamus at just the right spot to inhibit his tremor.

Alas, the banjo center of the brain is not an area well-known to neuroanatomists. To pick the optimal location for the electrodes, the surgery was performed under local anesthesia while Eddie played his banjo. He was thus able to update the surgeons in real-time as to whether the tremor was better or worse, letting them get the lead placement just right.


The BBC has posted some remarkable video and audio clips recorded during this surgery. The audio beginning at the 3:49 marker moved me the most. In this bit, the BBC interviewer asks Mr. Adcock to play the banjo with his stimulator on and off. The difference is pretty clear, even to the non-bluegrass ear.

Losing the ability to play is a special terror we musicians know, even for those of us who earn our living some other way. I went through this recently following a biceps tendon repair. The first few months were depressing for me because I couldn't bow my fiddle in my ginormous bionic elbow brace. However, once I was able to drape said brace over my guitar and play a few minutes every day, my spirits picked up considerably.

So, here's to the Vanderbilt neuro boys. There are a lot of musicians and music lovers out there who would happily line up to buy them a few drinks. If it would help us to play like Eddie Adcock, I know that several of us would also line up for our own set of electrodes.

(Hat tip to Anita Anderson)