Consumer Electronics Make Music 207
metoikos writes "Forget about hacking your Gameboy -- what about cat toys or Teddy Ruxpins? Any of these is fair game to a circuit bending hobbyist. Essentially, circuit bending is the art of making interesting noises come out of re-engineered consumer electronics, mostly toys.
Bending recently came into the spotlight when a number of news organizations discovered the 2004 Bent Festival at New York's Tank.
Derek Sajbel, a bender from California, is writing a book/doing a documentary on it." BishopBerkeley writes "Circuit bending has apparently been going on long enough among a large enough contingent of benders to merit a weeklong festival dedicated to bending circuits. The art is largely a process of making musical instruments by 'bending' the circuits of fairly common electronic instruments and gadgets. According to this article in the New York Times people have been making rather interesting music by modifying the strange toys with which a lot of us grew up. If you're near Manhattan, and you didn't know about the Bent Festival, then think about going. You can find more info at the official circuit bending web site."
Wow, That's Awful (Score:4, Insightful)
If that's all it takes to be called music, then I'm going to record all the noises my car makes and sell a CD of it.
Re:Uhm ok... (Score:2, Insightful)
Wrong. Let's say you play eighth notes at 120bpm for three minutes. Even if you restrict yourself to the 7 tones in a particular key instead of a full twelve tone octave, that's 1.3 x 10^325 possible songs.
Okay, so most music has a bit of repetition in it, so let's say the verse lasts 30 seconds out of that song. You still have 1.5 x 10^54 possible verses. And I'm not even taking chords into account.
Only non-musicians think that there's no new music to be made, because non-musicians simply don't realize the potential that exists in every single musical instrument. Of course, the other reason could be because pop musicians aren't even trying anymore [ultimatemetal.com]. Fact is, there is plenty of original music being made, you just have to look for it. Go down to a big-name music bar on a Friday night instead of browsing slashdot. (Yeah, yeah, I know. But I've got a gig tomorrow.)
On a side note, I am so sick and fucking tired of electronic "music." I don't know about you, but I want my music to be played by a fucking MUSICIAN, wielding an instrument like an extension of his body and putting all the feel and soul into it that ONLY a human can. THAT is music, not a bunch of wav files you strung together in Acid and called a song. Some guy sitting at a keyboard is not a musician, okay?
Let me know when you find electronic music that can make you cry or fall in love or get that amazing "that rocked so much" feeling when you hear a great performace. It's the human element that truly makes music what it is.
Re:Benders? (Score:1, Insightful)
Yesterday's News (Score:3, Insightful)