Weird science!

[flewellyn]

So, I was showing my friends on AIM a couple of extremely geeky examples of musical science.

First, the theme from "Super Mario Bros." as played on tesla coils:

And second, the theme from "The Legend of Zelda" on theremin, with synth backing:

To which my friend Magda said the following:

madelinetalks: Cute. I want one of those!
madelinetalks: Are you sure it's not magic?
Eyerleth: Yeah, they're pretty darn cool!
Eyerleth: It's not magic, it's SCIENCE!
madelinetalks: Sufficiently weird science is indistinguishable from magic!

Comments

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

Very much so. They produce electrical bursts at different frequencies to create sound. The coils are each assigned to one MIDI channel, fired in a sequence controlled by a computer.

There are no speakers. The electrical bursts are extremely loud by themselves.