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I took part in an exhibition in Germany back in 1999 that included a  
fantastic giant pyrophone built by Bastiaan Maris, consisting of 12  
pipes, twelve to twenty feet tall, each.  The controller was a simple  
stack o' cams, each switched to one of the pipes.  Soniclally, the  
experience reminded me of sitting at the edge of a pond back home in  
Michigan, at sundown, listening to the frogs.

While on the subject--or, rather, while gradually getting tangential  
to the subject--check out the work of Paul De Marinis, a sound artist  
at Stanford.  I've not seen "Firebirds," personally, but it sounds  
out-of-this-world:  controlled electrical fields modulate gas flames  
housed in birdcages, producing the sound of famous twentieth century  
political speeches!  Too much!
http://www.well.com/~demarini/exhibitions.htm

jason jay stevens
[log in to unmask]
www.potterbelmar.org



On Jan 17, 2006, at 12:28 PM, Ian Russell wrote:

> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology  
> Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related  
> institutions.
> ********************************************************************** 
> *******
>
> No harm in attempting a simpler solution, before getting into the  
> complexity of Schlieren optics. Set up a burning candle just below  
> the top of the organ pipe, illuminate it using one of those low- 
> voltage desk lamps with a tiny halogen bulb, and cast the shadow of  
> the hot air above the flame onto a large white card. The further  
> from the flame you put the lamp, the sharper (and dimmer!) the shadow.
>
> If that prototype works, it could save a lot of hassle. If the  
> sounding organ pipe shows no effect on the swirling hot-air-shadow,  
> then the much clearer Schlieren pattern probably wouldn't show the  
> effect you need either!
>
> Pieces of dangling tissue paper must be the easiest possible  
> solution. But wondering if low notes would cause the candle flame  
> itself to move gives me another idea. Why not experiment with gas  
> flames mounted close ABOVE the open ends of SEVERAL organ pipes?  
> It's just possible that the flames might be made to dance with the  
> music, which would be utterly awesome...
>
> You could easily prototype this with an ordinary gas blowtorch set  
> to a gentle, luminous flame, held above a sounding organ pipe.
>
> Hey! I just typed 'flame organ' into Google and discovered that a  
> flame organ or Pyrophone was invented by Frederic Kastner in the  
> 1800's. There's a whole shedload of stuff about these things. The  
> clever ones actually controlled internal flames to generate the  
> sound, while less subtle versions apparently shot coloured flames  
> out of the top. How cool is that? (Rats! Anyway, it's quicker to  
> post a message to ASTC-L than it is to file a Patent...)
>
>
> [log in to unmask] * http://www.interactives.co.uk
> *
> Give people facts and you feed their minds for an hour.
> Awaken curiosity and they feed their own minds for a lifetime.
> *
> Ian Russell
> ********************************************************************** 
> *
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