Sound Experiments 7 (2020)

 

More sound and light twiddling crumbs.

Mike Pinder and The Mellotron

Mike Pinder was a founding member, and once the keyboardist, of the band The Moody Blues.  Pinder passed recently.  Mr. Pinder was an acolyte of the weird instrument, The Mellotron.  

What was The Mellotron?  I asked ChatGPT to provide some illumination.  Here is what they said:

A Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in the early 1960s. It works by triggering prerecorded sounds stored on magnetic tape when a musician presses the keys on its keyboard. Each key on the Mellotron is connected to a tape playing a recording of an instrument, such as strings, flutes, or choirs, allowing musicians to produce orchestral sounds and effects that were difficult or impossible to recreate in live performances at the time. The Mellotron became famous for its distinctive sound and was prominently used by bands like The Beatles, The Moody Blues, and King Crimson, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s, adding a unique, ethereal quality to rock and progressive music.

Mike Pinder adopted the instrument to create some unique and memorable passages for the Mellotron.  Witness his use of the instrument on "Nights in White Satin", "Tuesday Afternoon", and "Legend of a Mind".  Symphonic, atmospheric, haunting.  Awesome work!  RIP, Mr. Pinder.

View the very interesting documentary on The Mellotron by clicking on the link below.

A Brief History of The Mellotron 

Swirl

 A youthful remembrance....

Music played in the background at the party.  A soundtrack playing half noticed and casually acknowledged with the occasional lyric sung and some part danced to by some of those gathered at the event. The music creates an atmosphere that is familiar and welcoming to the group gathered.  Sounds become louder or dampened depending on one’s proximity to the sound source.

I remember a party that we tagged along to once.  My friend knew some people who were having the get together at a house and we were allowed to attend.  The major attraction was that there would be live music from a rock band.

The band members didn’t all show up so the band never played.  There was a novice guitar playing kid who played “Ain’t Talking Bout Love” by Van Halen on an electric guitar as the organizers tried to decide how to salvage the evening.    The kid was learning the part so he started and stopped often and would start repeating the opening riff again.    

My buddy and I looked at each other.

“Why does he keep playing that riff?”

“Probably doesn’t know anything else.”

We had gotten semi wasted before entering the place and decided we would go back out to the car we arrived in a sip on our beers.  We were a little tired, bored and drunk.  We went to a safe haven away from the strangers, our car.

The party people started playing CDs to fill the silence which appeared after the kid with the guitar stopped his noodling.  The music swirled skyward.

We only stayed about another hour but the memory stuck with me over the years as it was another adventure during my teenage life. 

We would never visit that particular place in time again.

"Can...can...can....you...you...you....hear...hear...hear....me...me...me...me?????

 I went to a stand up comedy event held at the SAP Center in San Jose, California recently.  There was an immediate problem with the show that persisted for over an hour.  The various performers using a handheld microphone were unintelligible to the audience due to an uncommon amount of slapback echo.  Now, I know there should be rehearsal time and the setting of audio levels and testing that take place well before the public fills their seats.  Maybe this happened.  Maybe it didn't.  Another possible reason for the bad audio was that the SAP Center audio crew was filling in for the usual stand up tour's audio team.  I think I heard that excuse but I am not sure because the audio was all a difficult to understand wash of noise.

This is a VideoGPT video loosely based on that event.  lol.

A Symphony Of Wind (Desert Suite)

 The sound of the howling of wind can carry with it many sensations.  Consider the emotional response to the forlorn, singular wail that accompanies its passage.  There may manifest in a mind loneliness, fear, apprehension.  The usage of these wails as a sound effect to support tales of the supernatural or lonely, empty environments in movies is a favored device.  I think of the giant crawly creature movie "Them" and its barren desert landscape perpetually being scathed by the strong winds.  "Gargoyles" which has remote desert regions being engulfed in raging canyon winds.  The Three Stooges' comedic short "Spooks" and the buffeting of a haunted castle by an incessant, pounding whoosh of stormy breezes.  Whatever its many manifestations, wind as a sound and presence can carry a heavy emotional impact.

So enjoy this trifle I dreamed up and which resonates in my mind of the lonely wind coursing through a desert landscape.

Sound Experiments 6 (2020)

For this segment of the series, iphone apps are used to generate some noise.  The apps used were bent.fm, Moog Filtatron, Moog Model D and Synthmaster One.  The Magic program was used to generate some audio activated effects.  Listen up.

.  Also used the Magic program to get some sound activated graphic response.

Orbital Drum???

 I just watched an old episode of "Nasa's Unexplained Files".  There was a story about an astronaut orbiting Earth solo in his space capsule.  Out of a relative calm, the astronaut heard loud banging on his vehicle!  The striking of the capsule's metallic surface from some unknown source went on for a small amount of time and severely frightened the astronaut who called out for a reply to whatever was responsible for this racket.  Seems pretty incredible but the astronaut was convinced that he had some manner of lifeform shadowing his mission and as a consequence, messing with his head, Big Time!  Eventually, the outer hull racket abated and no answers were to be had of who this potential intruder was, but, HOW CREEPY!!!! Was the space capsule being used as an Experimental Musical Instrument?  An Orbital Drum, if you will?  We can only speculate....

Here is a VideoGPT AI retelling of the situation in its own analysis!  Enjoy.  

Underground Dwelling Lute Lizards

 

I was in a weird frame of mind recently and wanted to try out the VideoGPT app to see what outlandish results I could get from using a text to video generating application.  What better topic than the conspiracy theory regarding a hidden race of cave dwelling lizards?  People have been reporting disturbing sightings of bipedal lizards, equal in size or taller than the average man's height.  There also is speculation that these odd beasts inhabit remote caves and otherwise lightly travelled areas.

Going with this knowledge in hand, I hallucinated a scenario where a cave explorer happens upon a race of underground cavern dwelling lizard men that embody a lute playing orchestra.  Very random story kernel, I know, but watch the results and see.  The thing is that these appear to be lizards that are more in favor of strumming mandolins and guitars.  Go figure....AI!

Aquatic Firecracker!

Check out this craziness.  According to recent Internet story, a half inch long fish can generate some amazingly loud racket.

Quoting here a few lines from the story:

"Danionella cerebrum, a species of fish discovered only about three years ago, are tiny translucent fish that live in shallow streams in Myanmar. They are no more than 12 millimeters long and have a "unique sound-generating" organ that can make noises of more than 140 decibels, an international research team said in a news release Tuesday.

"To make noise, the fish hits the drumming cartilage against its swim bladder, a gas-filled cavity or organ that is predominantly used to control buoyancy, the study says. The movement produces a rapid pulse in high and low frequencies.

"This apparatus accelerates the drumming cartilage with a force of over 2,000g and shoots it against the swim bladder to produce a rapid, loud pulse," Britz said. "These pulses are strung together to produce calls with either bilaterally alternating or unilateral muscle contractions.

“We assume that the competition between the males in this visually restrictive environment contributed to the development of the special mechanism for acoustic communication,” Britz said."

Wow!  That is crazy.  The incredible things that Science is discovering on a daily basis.  Amazing.

Get a sample of the noisy fish at the link below.

Loud, little sucker 

Sounds Of Our Celestial Cousins

Planets in our immediate celestial neighborhood generate sound.  How?  According to my research, and, I quote this Internet search result:

The planetary sounds we hear, are wavelike vibrations of air molecules occurring within the range of frequencies to which our ears are sensitive, according to the BBC. However, it's possible to process any other kind of wave or oscillation electronically, scaling it to audible frequencies and then converting it into a sound wave.

So, venture to the link below to access these "other worldly" sounds, now!

Sounds of Our Solar system