Sound Visualization using the elements: Part 1 – Electricity

April 2, 2009 // Posted in Audio Hardware, Culture, Visualization  

This is the first article in a series about methods of visualizing sound outside of a television or computer screen. This series was inspired by a recent discussion with Aaron Higgins of Sound Trends that got me thinking about alternative methods of music visualization.

Electricity

Electronic music has been around for nearly a hundred years. Historically, electricity has been used in conjunction with magnetism to record and reproduce sound waves.

Speakers are essentially magnetic coils, powered by electric signals. Microphones are the exact opposite. They are magnetic coils which generate electricity by being vibrated.

In this demonstration, no magnetism is used. Electrons bolting through the air at specific frequencies, recreate musical notes. In sequence, these lightning bolts are discernable as music. This is electronic music in it’s purest form.

“Say man, do you play any instruments?”
“Yeah, the tesla coil!”

In the second example, notice the neon light in the back of the room. Nikola Tesla believed that energy could be broadcast without the use of wires. This is a very good demonstration of that principle. Electricity, generated by the tesla coil is powerful enough to illuminate the nearby lightbulb.

Next article, Part 2 – Fire

This entry was posted on April 2, 2009 at 10:49 am and is filed under Audio Hardware, Culture, Visualization (Tags: , , , , , ). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Comments (1)

  • Luciano says:

    Aye, I @PhattyMo Aye, I myself have a T23 that’s crekacd in at least 2 places. Waiting for it to completely die so I have an excuse to get something else. It runs just as fast as it used to, the interwebs just demand too much these days, but it’s fine for a bunch of xterms. Only thing I’ve ever had to replace was the Fan/Heatsink assembly.

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