A viral video for the Japanese mobile giant NTT Docomo.

A track of pitches makes a wooden ball into a mallet, traversing a track as it is driven by gravity. The keys of that track become a xylophone, the traversal of space sequencing notes in time, and you hear Bach Cantata 147, “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.”

via [CDM]

Orange is testing a Sound Charge t-shirt at the Glastonbury Festival to charge Smartphones from Music Fans with the use of Sound Waves.

The eco charging device uses an existing technology in a revolutionary way; by reversing the use of a product called Piezoelectric film, allowing people to charge their mobile phones whilst enjoying their favourite headline act at Glastonbury. Usually found in modern hi-fi speakers, an A4 panel of the modified film is housed inside a t-shirt which then acts much like an oversized microphone by ‘absorbing’ invisible sound pressure waves. These sound waves are converted via the compression of interlaced quartz crystals into an electrical charge, which is fed into an integral reservoir battery that in turn charges most makes and models of mobile phone. As the ‘device’ is worn, a steady charge is able to be dispensed into the phone via a simple interchangeable lead which fits most handsets.

via [Gizmodo]

Piano by MaltaGirl @Flickr

A new study finds that both western music and western speech use the interval of a minor third to communicate sadness. But which used it first?

Read the whole article at Guardian.co.uk.

via [brainpicker]

Martin Lindstrom, author of the book Buy-ology, explains Why a Baby’s Laugh Will Make You Buy.

via [Time]

Two great reads about an interactive album created by brothers Hays and Ryan Holladay, aka Bluebrain.

On Saturday, the Washington-based band of brothers, Hays and Ryan Holladay, will release what has been dubbed the world’s first location-aware album — an app designed for smartphones that uses Global Positioning System technology to trigger different swaths of electro-pop based on physical location. Titled “The National Mall,” the app-album can be heard only in Washington by iPhone-toting listeners strolling around the monuments and museums.

via [CDM] and [Washington Post]

Realtime sound visualisation made with custom software “Partitura”
Sound by Telefon Tel Aviv

an ongoing collaboration between Abstract Birds and Quayola

Partitura is a custom software to generate realtime graphics aimed at visualising sound. The term “Partitura” (score) implies a connection with music, and this metaphor is the main focus of the project. Partitura aims to create a new system for translating sound into visual forms. Inspired by the studies of artists such as Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Oscar Fischinger and Norman McLaren, the images generated by Partitura are based on a precise and coherent system of relationships between various types of geometries. The main characteristic of this system is its horizontal linear structure, like that of a musical score. It is along this linear environment that the different classes of abstract elements are created and evolve over time according to the sound. Partitura creates endless ever-evolving abstract landscapes that can respond to musical structures, audio analysis and manual gestural inputs. It is an instrument that visualises sound with both the freedom of spontaneous personal interpretation/improvisation and at the same time maintaining the automations and triggers of mathematical precision.

Partitura defines a coherent language of its own for the creation of new contemporary abstractions. It is within this system that Partitura creates worlds that expand from a single dot to multiple galaxies, from minimalism to complexity, from rigid to elastic, from solid to liquid, from angular to smoothness, from tentative to boldness, from calm to agitation, from slow to fast, from desaturated to saturation, from dark to lightness, from predictable to unpredictability. Literally ‘everything’ and its opposite… just like a musical flow.

Markus Wagner finished his work on the video for my personal project Amongst Giants.
I am very pleased with the result – but see for yourself…

If you are interested in Markus Wagner’s work check out his website here.
Additional credits for animation go to the rest of the lzw crew!

You can check out and buy the complete album on bandcamp.

Due to the upcoming award ceremonies – the winner of the 2010 CLIO music awards. Gold award for Original Music went to an advert for Tierschutzbund.

via [soundloungeblog]

Today by Jonathan Harris

via [play]

A collaboration between PURE, a music collective, and Erich Berger, an interactive artist, the performance involves 12 musicians, each of whom are wired to an electrocardiogram. Software then tracks their heartbeats, using them as fodder for both a projected visualization and a musical score, which the musicians see on laptops placed in front of them. Watch how intense the visuals get towards the end.

via [we make money not art]