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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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