Once upon a time, bands that wanted percussion in their music needed a real live human to keep the beat. That all began to change with an inventor named Ismail al-Jazari. He wrote a book called The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices.
It describes 50 mechanical devices as well as instructions on how to build them. Al-Jazari was fascinated by automata, machines that operated on their own.
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One such machine outlined in this book was something built on a boat featuring four robot-like musicians, a flutist, a harpist, and two tambourine players, all of which were powered by moving water and a series of gears and axles. When turned on the robots played a tune with a rhythm track. By making small adjustments, the rhythm could be changed.
Al-Jazari had essentially invited the first-ever programmable drum machine. This was in the year 1206. More next time.
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