There are a lot of different musical instruments out there. Just about all of them share four basic components: a harmonic oscillator, a source of noise, a control surface for modulation, and a resonator.
Posts Tagged ‘resonance’
How musical instruments work
Wednesday, July 29th, 2009
Jimi Hendrix, electronic musician
Monday, July 6th, 2009People had been playing electric guitar for decades before Jimi Hendrix. Mostly it had been used as a louder, less effortful version of the acoustic guitar. Jimi was one of the first to think of the guitar amp as a musical instrument unto itself, an early analog synth, with the guitar as a very sophisticated control surface.
Wow chicka wah-wah
Saturday, June 27th, 2009Say “oooh” as in “noodle.” Then say “aaah” as in “park.” When you say “oooh” your mouth is more closed, with less resonating space and a smaller opening. This configuration blocks the higher overtones of your voice. When you say “aaah” your jaw and lips open, creating more resonating space and letting more high overtones through. Now glide from one to the other. The resulting “ooohaaaah” is the sound the wah-wah pedal is named for. By selectively filtering an electronic instrument’s overtones, the pedal can make it sound more vocal. It’s only two vowel sounds out of the dozens your mouth is capable of producing, but it’s a start toward making a more human tone.
Tuning the quantum guitar
Friday, March 20th, 2009In high school science class, you probably saw a picture of an atom that looked like this:
The picture shows a stylized lithium atom, a nucleus with three red protons and three blue neutrons, surrounded by three grey electrons. It’s an attractive and iconic image, and it would make a great logo. It’s also misleading, and in some physical contexts, totally wrong. There is an extent to which protons, neutrons and electrons are like little marbles, but it’s a limited extent. Electrons do flit around the nucleus, but they don’t do it in elliptical paths as if they’re little moons orbiting a planet. The true nature of electrons in atoms is way weirder and cooler. It’s also counterintuitive, and difficult to draw. Fortunately, we have electronics to help us visualize. (more…)