Sound and Music

A participant on a recent workshop at Kew Gardens told me about a project he is involved with. It's called the Open Boat Orchestra (or OBO if you prefer an abbreviation!)

The project was the brainchild of professional sailor, Lia Ditton and it uses real-time data from a sail boat to create a unique experience in sound.

I've been having a look through last.fm and putting together some playlists, mainly as an introduction to the history of the music and sound we're involved in.

Please feel free to make contributions and to be our friend- I've tried to keep a broad range of artists, and those with playable material up.

Something which has been pointed about this year's football World Cup has been the sound at matches.  Many fans in South Africa have been bringing Vuvuzelas- long fixed-pitch horns and playing them in the crowd.

Today I read that the UK Metropolitan Police have started to use Electrical Network Frequency[PDF] (ENF- small variations in the frequency of AC mains electricity) in order to identify or verify the time when audio recordi

One of the CDs which recently turned up at our office was marked with a sticker on the polythene with the following information:

"CONCEPTUAL ART"

NOTICE: This CD is made from an original source of P.C.M. DATA @ +1 -1 +1 -1... This will probably not be rendered as sound by a CD players[sic] DAC.

Nicolas Collins is and experimental musician and author of Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking, a bible for anyone who want to make their own electroni