Reactable

Is this how we’ll be making music, 20 years from now?

The reactable, is a multi-user electronic music instrument with a tabletop tangible user interface. Several simultaneous performers share complete control over the instrument by moving physical objects on a luminous table surface.

And in case you’re wondering, here’s how it looks:

How Tonedeaf Are You?

While working at the music and neuroimaging lab at Beth Israel/Harvard Medical School in Boston, I developed a quick online way to screen for the tonedeafness. It actually turned out to be a pretty good test to check for overall pitch perception ability. The test is purposefully made very hard, so excellent musicians rarely score above 80% correct.

I can’t try this out right now, but you have a go! Via Duncan who (besides having way too much time on his hands these days) tells me he scored an impressive 77,8%.

77 Million Paintings

Brian Eno, Light Painter:

The multidisciplinary artist, with the help of a few technical experts, has created a computer program that continually fuses his translucent light paintings to create an ever-evolving artistic display on your computer screen. The piece is accompanied by a randomly assembled ambient track that’s never the same twice. The program is capable of creating about 77 million permutations of Eno’s visual work and is titled, appropriately, “77 Million Paintings.”

As Duncan put it: Art or Screen Saver?

You Talkin’ To Me?

What American accent do you have? As for me:

Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you are from New York City (and not those other places) people would probably be able to tell if they actually heard you speak.

I’m particularly looking forward to reading Balint’s results. :)

The Fugs

Frank had this to say about The Fugs:

You mentioned the Fugs in comparison to us. The Fugs are not in good taste. They have a few bugs in their plan. One of them appeared on the David Susskind Show. I suppose their basic premise is “You talk dirty on a rock and roll record and this will lead the way to freedom of speech.” This guy is sitting there in his chair and he couldn’t care less about freedom of speech. He wants to be as cool as possible saying things like, “Yeah man, sure. Yeah, we live in the Village.”

Regardless: here’s a full download of their “Electromagnetic Steamboat”, should you be curious enough…

Kill Ugly Radio World Tour

Remember those scrapbooks that were passed around when you were a kid? A friend would ask you to write or draw something in his/hers and then you’d give it back. Some of the pages would turn out rather cheesy, while others would consist of really cool doodles or collages.

I was thinking: why not do something similar with the entire KUR readership? It would work something like this: I buy a blank sketchbook, put my contribution on page one, and then pass it on by snailmail to the next person in line, who in turn passes it on once s/he’s finished — much the way an Uncle Beat vine works. Once all the pages are filled up (or there no longer is anyone next in line), the last recipient sends it back to me. I would then scan in every single page and post them here and/or on Flickr.

Entries for each page could be anything Zappa- or KUR-related: writing, collages, drawings, glued-in scraps of paper, pictures, prints, etc. With a bit of luck we’d end up with the coolest Zappa scrapbook ever!

What do you think? Would you participate? I have a feeling this is going to be one of those posts with zero comments… :)

Update: Looks like we can take this baby on the road! I’ve set up a thread at the Uncle Beat Forum where you can add your name (and location) to the chain. For those who hadn’t signed up there yet: registration has been re-enabled. Hey Ho Let’s Go!