Tom from MusicRadar writes in to tell us about musician Gordon Charlton. Charlton figured out how to produce “Theremin-like” sounds by manipulating the feedback produced by certain brands of walkie-talkie:
He simply turns the handsets on and moves them closer together and further apart. The pitch of the feedback that’s created changes accordingly. That’s all there is to it, really – there’s no circuit-bending or other modification involved in this. Gordon uses a pair of Binatone Latitude 150 walkie-talkies (pictured below) that you can pick up for less than £20, but presumably, any model would do.
somewhere, boyd rice falls asleep
This requires a very loose definition of the word “music”. However since it is that loose, be prepared for a submission of my whoppie-cushion song.
@17 Wow, a sarcastic cat rubber!
Sorry if I creeped (crept?) you out. It’s called [i]theremin face[/i] – lot of players get it on account of being focussed on the sound – most get a “lights on but nobody home” look. I tend to stare. Even when I’m not playing music, just demonstrating a few arbitrary tones.
@15 Here’s a theremin player who doesn’t get theremin-face, and plays amazingly. Guarenteed totally non-hokey.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfQenM5LaBI
I’m sorry…. but why is it that the only time Boing Boing ever talks about music, it’s tied to hoaky novelties like this? There’s so much more to the contemporary music world and yet anytime BoingBoing gets involved, it immediately jumps to yet another one of these “charming, but gets old fast” tricks. People in the computer music world have been doing far far far more interesting things in acoustical science than this for decades!!! When you guys want to talk about composers like Allan Schindler, Morton Subotnick or Ben Thigpen and the works they do, then we can talk. These are the types of contemporary music art the world could use more of, not the banality that runs rampant on this site…. argh!
It is a bit like that one Steve Reich piece where he swings the microphone over an amp to get feedback. It’s called Pendulum Music (1968).
Strange stuff.
I first heard it called a “Martian Squeezebox.” I had a $0.50 set I got at the Salvation Army, with a line-out hacked into one run through a delay. Ahhhh….. squealliness.
@6 ROFL. Thanks for that.
@7 – thanks for the defence, but it’s not good noise either. If you like fringe music check my other yT vids. Iron Sun is old style industrial if noise is your thing.
@11 – you’re quite right. Came across the effect – new to me – ran off a quick demo vid straight away. I’d love to see it played better – any chance of your posting a video response?
Wow, music with feedback! It’s too bad no one back in say the 60′s ever figured out how to do this with say an electric guitar…
Oh and just for the record, I’ve rubbed two cats together hard and made better music than whatever he just (played?). We won’t even touch on the creepy stare factor…
Not a particularly thrilling example of feedback music, of course, you gotta love the fact that it is via radio.
@8 Try throwing a telephone pickup into the mix, then setting the whole assembly into the woofer where the pickup’s routed…..wahooo, hours upon hours of awesome!
At any rate, some more interesting feedback out there. Check out Robert Ashley’s “Wolfman,” Nic Collins’ “Pea soup,” or just about anything David Tudor.
That guy’s coke nail rules.
@#4
You should check out my weed nails.
@ qurve:
“This requires a very loose definition of the word ‘music’.”
Check out comment #7. What is a strict definition of the word “music” good for? Sadly, most people consider music to be a harmonious combination of tones, an explanation which excludes such interesting pieces of music as Bernard Hermann’s Psycho theme.
I certainly don’t think this is too groundbreaking, but there are many diehard fans of noise. To each his own.
this reminds me of my favorite drew carey show clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxYuBriNT7U
If you guys like this you should check out the music genre it belongs in “noise”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_music
I’ve been doing this since about 2002…I think I even have a pair of those exact walkie talkies, among others. This certainly isn’t groundbreaking, not to mention he obviously hasn’t thoroughly explored this as an instrument…I can get a lot wider range of sounds and more fine tuning than what he has managed to figure out…ultimately I left these behind for a better feedback system.
I have also done this since i was seven, but now that i am a growed up i call my cell phone with my girlfriend’s cell phone with both phones set to speaker phone.
I then hold one in each hand and speak into one or both.
makes a yummy digital delay.
unh huh… yup, been doin’ that since I was 7.
need article on “musician” who figured out how to make “Theremin-like” sounds while rubbing his finger around the rim of a wine glass. yup.
Let’s see 40 people doing that all at once to a
Bach fugue. That would be awesome.
Isn’t that the “Outer Limits” theme?
I’ll take my feedback music Hendrix, ‘Jesus and Mary Chain’ or ‘Velvet Underground’ flavoured thank you.