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Tag Archives: resonance

How musical instruments work

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

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.

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Jimi Hendrix, electronic musician

Monday, July 6, 2009

People 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 [...]

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Wow chicka wah-wah

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Say “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 [...]

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Tuning the quantum guitar

Friday, March 20, 2009

In high school science class, you probably saw a picture of an atom that looked like this: The picture shows a stylized atom, a nucleus with red protons and 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 [...]

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