The Kuzma Self-Playing Guitar System

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There is a lot of nuance that goes into how guitar is played which might not be obvious. Offsets for string timing, minor variations on fret-board pressure, pulling strings a bit either because of the way the chords work or for pitch reasons... it's just very complex.

Playing with a plectrum (or a thumb pick, or a bow) is very nuanced. I'm impressed that this mechanism works- it's a neat thing.

At the same time the mechanism of what fingers are doing when playing is very complex in ways that even good players and teachers might have a hard time enunciating. In addition having a good understanding of nuance in instrument, the nuances of performance, the nuances of the musical pieces, and being able to formulate what that is to a student is difficult and rare.

I'm not surprised that a smart and talented EE might not be able to know all that in addition to their more technical domain knowledge.

guitarer here

tone

is

in

the

hands

It sounds to me like the lack of timing variation and note dynamics make it sound robotic.

Added to this, I think the faster you go, the more it sounds like MIDI anyway. Here’s a human demonstrating that :

https://youtube.com/shorts/jMhRdSgXzNY?si=05oGl_ZgM9qnqxDG

https://youtu.be/D2r428egsvc?si=iXKWwC5FQDIobSUa

I've been learning guitar for a couple of years (being already an experienced pianist), and it was very surprising to me how many different techniques need to be mastered to play guitar. I never got to the level on piano where the precise way I hit the keys mattered (apart from soft or loud). On a guitar how precisely you hold and move your fingers makes a massive difference. Hammer-on, pull-off, bends, slides, barring and holding down multiple strings with one finger, are all different techniques. Then there's exactly where you hold the finger in relation to the fret which can really change the sound (or in my case, be completely wrong). On your right hand, there's how you pick or strum, even whether you use a plectrum, the pads of your fingers, or your nails.

I'd guess that it's a combination of things:

- The material of the robot's "finger" makes for a very clanky sound (metal?). Actually it sounds kinda like a harpsichord - The perfect rhythm makes for a very robotic feel - The perfect consistency of how a string is plucked (same attack/volume at every note) also makes for a very robotic feel

The first is about harmonics, the second two not so much, but I'd expect that harmonics are the lesser of what makes it feel midi-ey. After all, some people play with metal picks or fingerpicks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerpick).

This sounds even more like a machine than the Kuzma though.

The design in the OP is still more appealing (if less practical) to me because its movements and how it plays are still fairly close to how a human would play (Precisely because of the sliding). Sort of like how we generally find it less interesting when a specialized robot can perform some specific task rather than say a humanoid robot, even if it is worse at said task.

I think that is just because of the method of recording, that is what piezo pick ups on acoustic guitars sound like.