randformblog on math, physics, art, and design |
For the long Mayday weekend: Amazing Al Minns and Leon James dancing together in this ukrainian Mash-up by the band Танок На Майдані Конґо. I am probably a bit biased due to my fondness for eastern european music — since of course the daft punk–mash up and the original version of the Charleston are also very very good.
Following a long tradition (one post long at the moment, but quite a while ago) we present more music instruments that deserve more attention (together with the reason for that):
the octobass and the subcontrabass tubax: size does matter – finally
the nano guitar: Nanotechnology is the future. Build in ’97 it took 6 years until they were able to play it (well an other model, but they sure did not want to claim that stratocasters are unplayable in contrast to flying Vs).
->A funny script for the Wii remote called Wiitar by Jordan Sanborn available at WiiLi.org (see also this old randform post)
->another sportive Wii remote application: Tennis with a Wiibot
if you dont have a wiimote but just a brain then this artistic communication with an industrial robot may be interesting:
->empathizer by robotlab
ruskeys.net is a wonderfull site. A virtual museum for old russian made synths and keyboards.
Today is the 5th anniversary of the death of Oskar Sala. Oskar Sala was a physicist and composer and devoted his life to the development of the Trautonium.
Like the Theremin the Trautonium is one of the most influential forefathers of modern electronic instruments. But unlike the Theremin the Trautonium rarely made it into popular music (it might be best known for the sound effects in Hitchcock’s “the birds”).
There will be a memorial concert at the Musikinstrumentenmuseum Berlin on March 1st and 2nd.
“Subharmonische Klänge — Oskar Sala zum fünften Todestag”.
note: following the links is somewhat mandatory here
Yoshihiko Satoh is taking the idea of the double neck guitar to the edge. (via vvork).
a particular interesting double guitar can be seen here beeing half a bass. Also worth mentioning is conkling guitars’ double neck bass (with seven strings each). Up to five-neck guitars are used now and then.
However, the tendency of joining body parts seems to be more universal (and not only the double reed as shown above): There is for example Jhon Rose’s double violin, the “mystic” double flute wich seems to be similar to the Bulgarian Dvoyanka the double piano from 1928, or the double belled trumpet. And even now the development doesn’t stop.
Close to of off topic but a nice installation of Kenny Marshall.
…well, I’ve tried. But others do better and even a lot better: Like this working LEGO Harpsichord. We already noted that one can do serious things with lego bricks, but using the capes of the lego minifigures to cushion the dampers adds a new quality.
This dulcimer works as well but looks less fashionable.
An unsorted and incomplete list of music instruments that deserve more attention than they get. (more…)
sport fans of sport club Vëllaznimi, Gjakovë, Kosova
When discussing videogames in this old randform post, I was also mentioning examples where “virtual identities” where mingled with real war. It would be exagerated to see this already as a trend. Nevertheless I recently found a similar example of this mingling – however this time in marketing strategies, namely in the new marketing campaign “James Blunt returns to Kosovo”.
A lot of people think the NATO troops in 1999 brought peace into Kosovo and may be they did, however it is not clear yet how the conflict will end. But regardless of what the result may be – the main message of that conflict was sofar more or less: there seems to be no other solution than to fight violence with violence. The same old story. In a civilized “post war Europe”.
Where in fact – not only Kosovo – but the entire war in former Yugoslavia was a slap into the face of civilization. Sarajevo – city of culture and mulitethnicity – wiped out like nothing. Accumulated traumatas are again going to be distributed over generations. But back to the campaign.
James Blunt – whose marketing adepts were already quite extensively playing out his double identity of being a former soldier in Kosovo and likewise a heartful popsinger returns now to Kosovo according to this campaign.
Is this in order to make him more attractive following an old evolutionary paradigma that a warrior is guaranteeing a better fitness? Is this for giving more authenticity to his virtual identity? Make him more real?
As I already said may be the Kosovo mission was sucessful, despite the violence of the mission. This is one thing. It is something else which is leaving me with a stale flavour after watching the above video teaser, namely the citation of James Blunt (at least thats what I hear towards the end of the video, blame me if its wrong):
“….in Kosovo the issues were real….”
.
or was this just a Blunt-vs.-Bond joke by Blunt – sotosay a my-own-private-Kosovo, what I was hearing? a sudden ironic self-reflecting outbreak?
two ironic James Blunt cover versions:
->my cubicle and
->bloody cold.
(James Blunts original song)
