Archive for the ‘Music’ Category

Paper Copy of 122 Year-Old Record Played Back!

Sunday, July 1st, 2012

In an awesome case of 1890s cutting-edge tech meeting modern technology, sound historian (yes…that’s a job) at Indiana University, Patrick Feaster, has done something amazingly nerdy and fantastic.

While looking for an illustration of the world’s oldest recording studio for a talk he was giving on Thomas Edison’s recordings, Feaster pulled a book for research. Upon glancing at the index, he noticed there was an article on the gramophone. When he turned to the article? A paper print of the actual recording.

In February of this year, Feaster had done something amazing with these old paper prints of the recordings…

He played them back.

By scanning these paper copies Feaster is able to unwind or ‘de-spiral’ the line that the needle would follow on the physical record. Remarkably these unwound spirals look a lot like a modern audio file. Using special software, Feaster is able to then play back the audio captured from a flat photo.

Feaster had already done this twice with two other recordings. What makes this recording interesting is that it predate his other finds.

“In that recording, Berliner tells us he’s making a record for Rosenthal to experiment with,” Feaster says. “He shares that they’re in this particular building in Hanover, and then he recites some poetry, sings a song and counts to 20 in several languages.”

According to Feaster and his colleagues what he accidentally stumbled across was the earliest known gramophone recording ever made…printed out on paper…and played back 122 years later.

[Futurity.Org]

Japan Creates World’s First All-Virtual Pop Star

Friday, November 12th, 2010

Meet Hatsune Miku, the world’s first all-virtual pop sensation. Even here voice is a digital creation. What started as a digital voice generator from Yahama known as a vocaloid has gained such popularity that the company has created a 3D Hologram version that has performed to packed stadiums. But the real question is when did we get 3D holograms?!

HIV Makes Beautiful Music

Wednesday, November 10th, 2010

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A graduate student attending the University of Georgia has created a 52-minute album featuring musically transcribed HIV afflicted DNA.

On sale now at Amazon!

[Amazon via reader Tess]

The Ape That Taught The World To Sing

Tuesday, September 21st, 2010

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A new species of buffed-cheeked gibbon with a very distinctive call was identified by German researchers. Not only does this have implications on the heavily endangered gibbon in general, but the ape song could be the precursor to human music…

“An analysis of the frequency and tempo of their calls, along with genetic research, show that this is, in fact, a new species.”

The distinctive song “serves to defend territory or might even be a precursor of the music humans make,” the statement added.

Buffed-cheeked gibbon sounds like a third guy in on a remix, like “Tik Tok by Ke$ha feat. Lok D and Buffed-Cheek Gibbon.”

[AFP]

A Musical Tribute To The Fish That Walked

Monday, September 20th, 2010

Is it Music Monday up in this piece or what? This little ditty comes from Weird Things reader Joatmon who worked with band The Indoorfins to sing about the Tiktaalik, a fish that walked on its fins.

Read all about this awesome creature here.

It’s a mellow groove to an evolutionary link. Tik tik tik Tiktallik!

[Wikipedia]