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.