In the hands of a scientist, musical instruments can do many sorts of things. This study tells how some instruments can be used to distinguish between different kinds of physical materials. “Musical Instruments as Sensors,” Heran C. Bhakta, Vamsi K. Choday, and William H. Grover, ACS Omega, vol. 3, 2018, pp. 11026−11032. The authors, at […]
If you’re wondering whether musical instruments can be graded according to whether they’re perceived as masculine or feminine, the answer is yes (such perceptions can be graded). For an example study, look no further than the Journal of Research in Music Education, Volume: 29 issue: 1, page(s): 57-62, Issue published: April 1, 1981, where you’ll […]
Does this video, showing sound sculptor Henry Dagg performing ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ on a Faux-Katzenklavier of his own construction, qualify as a fictophonic collapse scenario? First, some background. Musicologists often like to categorise instruments into classes or groups. For example – idiophones (vibrating bodies), membranophones (vibrating membranes), chordophones (vibrating strings), aerophones (vibrating […]
The subcontrabass flute may or may not be exactly the same thing as the double contrabase flute. That depends on who you talk to about it, and how knowledgable they are, and how prone to suddenly become violent and attempt to pummel you for raising what they may regard as the spectre of heresy. Several […]
Jim Cowdery writes: No doubt your followers have been clamoring for updates to the contrabass/contrabassiphone post from several years ago. I am happy to provide this demonstration of the subcontrabass saxophone; the lowest note seems to be A-flat, a major second lower than a contrabassoon and a major third lower than a double bass with a […]
Today’s quick calculation exercise is to calculate the relative distances between different musical notes and a trombone player’s face. Watch this video of a trombone player playing a tune on a trombone. A GoPro camera has been affixed to part of the trombone, and aimed at the musician’s face: (Thanks to investigator Dorothy Bond for […]
Behold the subcontrabass saxophone, a musical instrument most people have never heard, or seen, or touched, let alone played. A saxophone instruction book, published by Wiley, says of it: Subcontrabass saxophone: This is the lowest of the low and has never been produced in large quantities. That’s probably fortunate, because you’d need a trailer to […]
Qubais Reed Ghazala explains how he builds new kinds of instruments by carefully bending, twisting, or otherwise deforming or even breaking things that were designed to be other than what Ghazala eventually had in mind for them. He wrote a study: “The Folk Music of Chance Electronics: Circuit-Bending the Modern Coconut,” Qubais Reed Ghazala, Leonardo […]
Investigator Jim Cowdery writes: People who found their lives enriched by Jay Easton’s gallery of big instruments are doubtless yearning for more. They will be relieved to learn of the Contrabass Mania website, which provides links to such enlightening materials as “The Encyclopedia of Really Big Wind Instruments”, “Warning Signs That You Might Be a […]