A night concert celebrating the 110th anniversary of Tsinghua University in Beijing attracted over 1,500 students and traditional Chinese music fans on Saturday.

Fang Jinlong, a master of the traditional Chinese instrument pipa, and three humanoid robots from the Tsinghua Moja Robot Band performed several Chinese music pieces. “I’m happy to see our performance can mix science and technology with traditional Chinese culture,” said Fang, who added that the robots were more precise and formal, while he was more agile and improvisational, so the two integrated well.

The robot band comes from interdisciplinary research by the Academy of Fine Arts and the Future Laboratory of Tsinghua University. The band name “Moja” is from Mohism, one of many schools of thought before the Qin Dynasty (221-207 B.C.). The band consists of three robot musicians, Yuheng, Yaoguang and Kaiyang, named after three stars of the Big Dipper. They played three kinds of traditional Chinese instruments: the bamboo flute, Chinese harp and paigu, a set of Chinese drums, at the concert.

Founded in 2018, the team behind the band is composed of students, teachers and graduates from Tsinghua University. They have professional backgrounds such as computing, mechanical engineering, modeling, sculpture and music composition.

The team’s chief scientist Mi Haipeng is an associate professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Tsinghua. He participated in the research and development of a robot rock band when he studied in Japan. That experience inspired his dream to make a Chinese robot band.

Mi said traditional Chinese instruments’ sound and playing techniques are different from those of Western musical instruments. The emphasis is more on the artistic conception and expression of the players. This kind of non-precise and non-quantitative control brings challenges to Moja robot development.

“In our research, we constantly explore how to solve these problems so that the robots can maintain the Chinese traditional characteristics when playing music,” he added.

During the concert, the flute player Yuheng pressed the flute holes with its fingers while blowing the air into the pipe with changeable pressure to play the notes. Yaoguang plucked the Chinese harp’s strings with its fingers, with each one striking one string. It ensures a broader chord range in a fast speed. Kaiyang imitated the movements of the human wrists to play the drums.

Mi said the music pieces in the concert were tailored for the robots to play. The robots’ shells and stage costumes were made via 3D-printing technology. He added that there are more performance plans for Moja in the future, introducing new music pieces. The team, meanwhile, would improve the musical expression of the robots.(Xinhua)