instrument-a-day 21: blinky
February 22nd, 2010
One of my earliest memories is of lying on the carpet under the christmas tree watching the colored shadows change as the bulbs blinked on and off, and listening to the small tinkling sounds of the tiny metal thermostat timers inside each bulb. For this instrument, I stuck contact microphones onto a bunch of blinky bulbs to magnify those sounds.
The sound in this video is in stereo.
A new handmade instrument each day in February 2010 photoblog
4 Comments Add your own
1. sushi john | February 23rd, 2010 at 6:59 am
hi,
I love your “instrument-a-day” project!
what kind of microphone did you used here?
2. pete | February 24th, 2010 at 1:16 am
I love this. Beautiful.
3. Katherine Sharpe | February 24th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
What a beautiful noise.
It reminds me of a favorite lightbulb-related sound I heard a while ago. There’s a place near Court Square in Queens called Brooks Restaurant. I walk past it on my daily commute. The restaurant has an outdoor sign with a ring of lightbulbs that go on and off one after another, creating sort of a ‘wave’ effect. If it’s quiet on the street, the sign makes a wonderful, very soothing sound. I’m not sure if it has something to do with the bulbs or if it’s (probably) just a fan. Anyway, this reminded me of it. Thanks.
4. Moveable and the Piano Mo&hellip | April 2nd, 2010 at 11:25 am
[...] Ranjit made cool handmade instruments every day for the month of February. My favorite was the “blinky” instrument, in which he hooked up microphones to the bulbs on a string of Christmas [...]
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