It's worth pointing out that the idea to have automata make music predates Lovelace. Music making automata were a staple of the renaissance. For example the mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler, when visiting the "Kunstkammer" of Rudolf II in 1598, was amazed at an automaton representing a drummer who could "beat his drum with
greater self-assurance than a live one" [1].
Incidentally, Kepler corresponded with Wilhelm Schickard on the latter's "arithmeticum organum", the first ever proper mechanical calulator (could do addition, subtraction, multiplication and division).
Automating creativity was very much an idea with much currency in the renaissance. Indeed some of the key advances in mechanical automata, which later evolved into computers, where driven by the desire to automate creativity [2]. The "conceptual leap" that some people lazily ascribe to Lovelace, wasn't hers!
[1] Jessica Wolfe, "Humanism, machinery, and Renaissance literature".
[2] Douglas Summers Stay, "Machinamenta: The thousand year quest to build a creative machine". Associated blog: http://machinamenta.blogspot.com
Incidentally, Kepler corresponded with Wilhelm Schickard on the latter's "arithmeticum organum", the first ever proper mechanical calulator (could do addition, subtraction, multiplication and division).
Automating creativity was very much an idea with much currency in the renaissance. Indeed some of the key advances in mechanical automata, which later evolved into computers, where driven by the desire to automate creativity [2]. The "conceptual leap" that some people lazily ascribe to Lovelace, wasn't hers!
[1] Jessica Wolfe, "Humanism, machinery, and Renaissance literature".
[2] Douglas Summers Stay, "Machinamenta: The thousand year quest to build a creative machine". Associated blog: http://machinamenta.blogspot.com