Mankind has always been fascinated by mechanical simulations of human activity. A characteristic of Western thought is to understand our minds, bodies, and our world in mechanistic terms. Music especially has been viewed as a mathematical and mechanical process. As a result, musicians, scientists, and engineers have devised all sorts of mechanisms and systems for composing and performing music. I will review some or these activities their evolution over the last 2000 years, ending with some recent findings on how a human audience relates to humanoid robot performers and how music can be composed by computers.

1. Music was considered by Pythagoras to be a branch of mathematics closely related to Arithmetic
2. Described by Plato in The Republic as the four arts: Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, Astronomy
3. Later formalized as the Quadrivium
4. Music theory has always had a musical aspect
5. Today, music composing, printing, recording, synthesizers … all based on digital information processing