Not sure if I can create some excitement for this here, but it doesn't seem completely off-topic. Immediately had to think of Animusic: <i>"Unlike many other music visualizations, the music drives the animation. While other productions may animate figures or characters to the music, the animated models in Animusic are created first, and are then programmed to follow what the music instructs them to do."</i>[0]<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGCTLJDoMGw" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGCTLJDoMGw</a><p>This isn't my favorite, but the 'futuristic theme' makes it maybe more obvious why I immediately thought of it. I think I've seen all their stuff, and Tesla Coils creating music would have been right up their alley.<p>These two are some of the best for sure<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlyCLbt3Thk" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlyCLbt3Thk</a><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41a3DR0sZ-c" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41a3DR0sZ-c</a><p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animusic" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animusic</a>
I saw a live performance using a 12 foot Tesla coil at Burning Man 2017 It was earthed to a 18 foot tall geodesic dome. They played a medley of tracks and then the base of the Tesla coil mildly exploded and started burning. I went by the next morning and the whole camp had packed up and left. Pretty awesome experience. If anyone knows any more about that project I'd love to hear it.
Don't forget that Africa is playing in the African desert right now...<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCuP7ABO_Go" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCuP7ABO_Go</a><p><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/toto-africa-loop-african-desert-sound-installation-778767/" rel="nofollow">https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/toto-africa-lo...</a>
Here's an acquaintance of mine playing with a musical Tesla coil and a propane blowtorch:<p><a href="https://youtu.be/M91AYp3_x5k?t=122" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/M91AYp3_x5k?t=122</a><p>He also has some small tabletop-sized coils that are really neat:<p><a href="https://youtu.be/li3rGKFfQ1A?t=18" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/li3rGKFfQ1A?t=18</a><p>And here's the Ghostbusters theme at one of their performances while spectators are standing inside the cage:<p><a href="https://youtu.be/bTkjgBRiCsE?t=2198" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/bTkjgBRiCsE?t=2198</a>
Eye of the Tiger on a dot matrix printer:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8I6qt_Z0Cg" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8I6qt_Z0Cg</a>
Dr Who theme: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdrqdW4Miao" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdrqdW4Miao</a>
Check out Arc Attack[1] (I've had the pleasure of seeing them live) for some other cool people doing neat things with tesla coils and music. They've done several different events, and even dress up in chain mail and dance around between the coils[2].<p>[1] <a href="https://arcattack.com/" rel="nofollow">https://arcattack.com/</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5xSYNFNEjI" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5xSYNFNEjI</a>
Fun! Idea: Could the song be played at 2x or 4x speed, recorded at a high framerate, then slowed down to .5x or .25x so that song is in real-time but the sparking was in slow motion?
I'm partial to the floppotron rendition: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q260bjSiyq0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q260bjSiyq0</a><p>It's not quite as visually impressive as those tesla coils though.
"Big Ideas: Don't get any" (Radiohead) played on old hardware.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmfHHLfbjNQ" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmfHHLfbjNQ</a>
My favorite is this rendition of House of the Rising sun on two Tesla coils: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH-YmzZgZ-Q" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH-YmzZgZ-Q</a>
Perhaps a bit off-topic, but the chorus of “Africa” is almost exactly 20 seconds long, so it is a great song to wash your hands to if you’re sick of “Happy Birthday“.
UIUC usually has a "tesla coil concert" at Engineering Open House, which is basically a big multiday science fair thrown by the students in the College of Engineering. Here's last year's: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv1dY6C4WW8&t=1463" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv1dY6C4WW8&t=1463</a>
He also made a this gem by Daft Punk<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjrzu23Lc-4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjrzu23Lc-4</a><p>And one more: Mortal Kombat theme:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeeN9JKvay4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeeN9JKvay4</a>
plasma audio can be dangerous b/c of the ionisation; here is a guy who went around demonstrating one, who ended up with ozone poisoning: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msE14cWTwKI" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msE14cWTwKI</a>
How long until Daft Punk incorporates some musical Tesla coils in a live show?<p>Update: somebody beat them to it <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psoLXEBmfRg" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psoLXEBmfRg</a>
Also you can hear AM radio transmission if you short the tower: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo9nGzIzSPw" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo9nGzIzSPw</a><p>Electricity is both awesome and terrifying
<i>It looks even better in person and sounds almost the same, just without the beat/percussion backing track.</i><p>Dammit, I really wish when people would do this stuff they would not add backing tracks.
This is awesome? Can anyone explain why all the notes are strung together with glissando? (like a slide on a guitar). I assume it somehow cannot react fast enough to produce the notes separately without sliding between them
In this vein, Device Orchestra's performance of Finlandia is masterful.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOgd2B__X0k" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOgd2B__X0k</a>
One of my favorites is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ</a>. It HAD to be done.
There are kits for building plasma speakers, but the 1" arc is a lot less impressive. It's still a little mind-blowing that an electrical arc can make sound.
Another one previously on HN:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21488786" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21488786</a>
'The internet is obsessed with two songs and two songs only. But for different reasons. The first is Smash Mouth’s “All Star.”'... 'The world wide web’s other musical obsession though legitimately rules—Toto’s “Africa.”'<p>Surely this is in with a shout?
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ</a>