A Piano that Speaks English

Everything from traffic noise, violins, to our own voices are changes in the way the air around us move. When they create a sound, they are creating a wave that oscillates at certain frequencies. In theory then, by analyzing these frequencies and wave patterns and reproducing them with different mediums, you can recreate the sound of anything from animals to instruments, to pretty much everything. This is the theory behind synthesizers - they "synthesize" the frequency and wave patterns of instruments like violins, and reproduce them through pre-programmed sin waves.

In theory then, you could reproduce the sound of say, a violin, with anything. That's right. You could make hitting lego blocks, clapping hands, even a car - to sound like a violin. Why? Because we are able to analyze the frequency of a violin and break it down to small components. If we have enough precise control over (lots of) lego blocks, then we could manipulate them enough such that hitting them would produce a similar frequency pattern as a violin. Sounds far fetched?

There's an interesting comparison that you're probably more familiar with - image mosaics. Or pictures that are made up of smaller pictures:

Not perfect, but it's clearly visible - and this next video is essentially the musical equivalent.

Created by Berno Polzer as a performance art piece "Wien Modern" is an installation for the World Venice Forum 2009.  Using a detailed analysis of a recital of the Proclamation of the European Environmental Criminal Court, "Wien Modern" uses a combination of piano keys to simulate the sound of a human child. Each piano key would be like the small pictures in the image above - and the human voice like the Mona Lisa.



I'd like to see other instruments do these sorts of things too!

*I've been busy recording my own music in the past couple months, so this blog has suffered. I'll try to get this going again ASAP, but thanks for your patience in the mean time.

Using an Old Nintendo as an Instrument

Anamanaguchi is a band from New York which consists of 2 guitarists, a bassist, a drummer... and an old NES. You know, that fun little gray machine that you play games on. Or at least games from the 80's.

Instead of using regular keyboards however, they hacked an NES to enable the designing/programing of sounds. Now that's a fun concept! The music is obviously very "video-game" like, but because of the "real" instruments that play with the NES, it has an added depth that's interesting. Check it out!



The Anamanaguchi Website

Modifying the Guitar Hero Guitar into a Real Instrument

So following a post about a Guitar Hero type program that teaches you how to play the real thing with this post... is perhaps overkill, but this too excited to ignore. It combines my geeky yearnings with my musical needs!

This video is of a guy who has modified the Guitar Hero controller for the Wii, and turned it into a synth. It's basically a synth controller that is triggered by the Guitar Hero controller, so in reality it's not that impressive - in terms of a new instrument, it really isn't one. Except that it's just plain awesome, because it's a Guitar Hero guitar being used as a real instrument! Hahahaha---!

Watch him play "Smells Like Teen Spirit" with it. It actually works!