For the past few days, I’ve been preparing a wireless carillon that will hang on our Christmas tree this year. The carillon is a set of 9 brass bells, which can play different tunes. It is connected to an Arduino micro-controller that controls the bells. The Arduino receives messages from my desktop computer via an […]

It’s been a long while since I’ve posted, but hopefully, there are still one or two of you out there who understand the value of a good RSS feed. I’m back to write about a book I’m enjoying, with the following cryptic title: 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10 If this line of BASIC code […]

Hey, remember that music box kit I was playing with a few months ago? Vi Hart had the brilliant idea of twisting the paper into a Möbius strip! This effectively doubles the length of the music and presents an interesting compositional challenge. Check out the video!

You’re looking at a hybrid music/chess system that I’ve created, in preparation for a concert of new and experimental music in late June. The chessboard on the left (a Novag Citrine) is wired to the computer via a serial/USB cable. When people play on the chessboard, the computer monitors their moves, and attempts to figure […]

I’ve been posting the above ad at local chess clubs in Los Angeles, in preparation for a June concert in which a live chess game will be translated into music. Contact me if you have leads. Thanks!

The music box disc I’m getting prepared, mentioned in the previous post, looks something like this. Here’s a simulation of what it would sound like, played on an antique Stella music box, assuming the box’s spring-wound mechanism has the strength to play the first chord, in which every tine sounds at the same time. It […]

Oh, I’ve been bitten by this mechanical music bug big time. I’m now working on composing some new music for an orchestrion. This will be no mere weekend-long project (as most of mine tend to be), and hopefully I can share some audio snippets with you as work progresses. I imagine most of you don’t […]

Today, on the spur of the moment, I decided to visit the Nethercutt museum in Sylmar, which I had heard about a couple of years ago when I was researching automatic music instruments. The museum, an unexpected display of wealth that sits on the corner of an industrial park in an economically depressed area — […]

Wheel Music is another music visualization, using similar techniques to those I used in my Whitney Music Box. Each dot in the animation represents an individual note you are hearing. The notes are slowly traveling around in a circle. Each square represents a different tone cluster, or chord. Colors represent note values, and the radius […]