Check this out, please!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99TIWqCoDh8&search=drum%20solo

         > Iszil

Here are all their videos. Almost all, at least.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search=animusic&search_type=search_videos&search=Search
Freaking great!

        > Iszil

Yes indeed..... there used to be a place in Covent Garden London, by the name Theartre Mechanica...not sure if its still there. Used to be an old picture house or something. Anyway, it was full of mechanical toys all based on the simple principle of turning a crankshaft which in turn drove the systems (off centre wheels) which created movement within the given piece...some very  simple, like a crocodiles mouth opening and closing, to large scale pieces like the building of the piramids....all from turning one handle....some ran on punched paper "programes" like a hurdy gurdy.
   So....guess what we at the lab will be up to at the weekend....thanks for the pointer....ps did you watch that twelve year old doing the eight minute  drum solo....like a mini Mitch Mitchell....awesome thought me and the mice.

I love Animusic! It can be mesmerizing! What's cool is that once they create a music machine, it can be fed any music and will play it, since they use a pre-process to generate the animations.

From their website: http://www.animusic.com/company.html

People often ask us what software we use, and if it's available commercially.

Animusic uses proprietary motion generation software called MIDImotionTM, to drive animation parameters within commercial packages. For the first DVD, we used 3D Max. Previously, we've modeled with Alias software and rendered with RenderMan. In the earliest pipeline (for "More Bells and Whistles"), Lytle used Wavefront. The pipeline for the follow-up DVD is again based on 3D Max, but now includes additional proprietary animation software for motion and cameras.

But no matter what commercial software we use, the animation is always calculated procedurally with MIDImotion. This software is not currently available commercially, although it is likely that we will release a software product at some point in the future (many people have encouraged us to do so). Details will be posted here.

Without MIDImotion, animating instruments using traditional "keyframing" techniques would be prohibitively time-consuming and inaccurate. By combining motion generated by approximately 12 algorithms (each with 10 to 50 parameters), the instrument animation is automatically generated with sub-frame accuracy. If the music is changed, the animation is regenerated effortlessly.
       

Our technique differs significantly from reactive sound visualization technology, as made popular by music player plug-ins. Rather than reacting to sound with undulating shapes, our animation is correlated to the music at a note-for-note granularity, based on a non-real-time analysis pre-process. Animusic instruments generally appear to generate the music heard, rather than respond to it.

At any given instant, not only do we take into account the notes currently being played, but also notes recently played and those coming up soon. These factors are combined to derive "intelligent," natural-moving, self-playing instruments. And although the original instruments created for our "video album" are reminiscent of real instruments, the motion algorithms can be applied to arbitrary graphics models, including non-instrumental objects and abstract shapes.

The MIDImotion engine is generally wrapped as a plug-in for commercial animation software.