Haile, a robot, catches the beat — with a little help from graduate student Scott Driscoll, left, and Gil Weinberg, assistant professor and director of music technology. Weinberg says the robot percussionist "can listen to live players, analyze their music in real time and use the product of this analysis to play back in an improvisational manner" through computational power and numerical algorithms. The world premiere of "Jan'aa," an interactive jam session integrating Haile into a Middle Eastern drum circle, was staged in Jerusalem on March 25.

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