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"Strange But True"

I thought I’d share with you some musical/acoustical oddments from my “archives,” things that I’ve found fascinating over the years, and prove once again that truth is often stranger than fiction.

The World’s First Electric Instrument

We are used to thinking that electrical musical instruments first appeared in the 20th century, with such inventions as the electric guitar, lap and pedal steel guitars, Onde Martenot, theremin, etc. However, electric instruments go back much farther than that. As a matter of fact, the first documented electric musical instrument was invented during the mid-1700s, at the very same time that scientific understanding about electricity was beginning to blossom.

French scientist and musician Jean-Baptiste de LaBorde, inspired by the electrical experiments of Benjamin Franklin and others, conducted sophisticated experiments of his own in the 1750s. Although he and his contemporaries had much to learn yet about the nature of electrical phenomena, LaBorde immediately saw the potential of this new discovery for practical applications, and in 1759, he invented what he called the electric harpsichord.

LaBorde’s instrument was actually more akin to an electric handbell ringer or carillon, relying on bells rather than strings. These bells were arranged in tuned unison pairs, with small strikers between them. The strikers were wired to a piano-style keyboard, which was powered by an ingenious wet-cell battery. When a specific key was pressed, electrical current was directed to the appropriate striker, which vibrated and rang its pair of bells, producing the desired musical pitch. The bells would continue to ring as long as the key was depressed, then cease when the key was released.

The electric harpsichord was never adopted in any meaningful way by other musicians, and it eventually became little more than a footnote in the histories of science and electronic music. However, in 1979, Americole Biasini published the first full English translation of LaBorde’s original manuscripts and diagrams, copies of which had existed in the library of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia for over two hundred years. Biasini’s book, The Electric Harpsichord (Americole, Bellingham, WA, 1979), provides a fascinating look both at early experiments with electricity, and at the earliest use of electricity in a musical instrument.

The World’s Tiniest Guitar

Fast forward now to the late 1990s, to a completely different kind of science, and a very different kind of musical instrument. Engineering and physics experts at Cornell University succeeded in creating the tiniest musical instrument ever, by carving a microscopic piece of crystalline silicon into the shape of a guitar. The guitar is only 10 micrometers long. That’s 10 millionths of a meter long, which is roughly the size of a blood cell, or one twentieth the thickness of a human hair. In addition, the guitar has six carved strings, each of which is about 50 billionths of a meter thick and can be plucked. Presumably the strings make a sound, but they’re far too tiny to be heard. The guitar itself is so small that the only way it can even be seen is through an extremely powerful microscope.

Though this is one of the more whimsical research projects undertaken in recent years, it also had a decidedly practical objective. Researchers wanted to demonstrate the potential of new technologies and manufacturing processes that make it possible to build ultra-miniature devices, which might then be used as components in extremely small mechanical and electrical systems in the future. Project supervisor, Harold Craighead, said that it may be possible to construct even smaller devices, however it does appear that we may be reaching the technological limit.

Fighting Fire With Fire

People whose jobs require them to work in environments with high levels of ambient noise routinely wear hearing protection, from small, foam ear plugs to larger headphone-style protectors. However, these devices can impair people’s ability to hear co-workers’ voices, safety alarms, radio communications, and other important sounds. Scientists are working on other solutions to the noise problem, and one of the more promising technologies to appear in recent years is phase cancellation, which, in essence, uses noise to eliminate noise.

Phase cancellation noise reduction is an innovative new application of one the most basic acoustic principles, namely that sound is made up of waves. More specifically, sound is comprised of compressions and expansions of air molecules that travel through space in a wavelike manner. These compressions and expansions can be thought of as the crests and troughs on the surface of water as a wave passes through it. If two waves of equal strength meet each other in such a way that the crest of one coincides with the trough of the other (i.e. the two waves are “out of phase”), they simply cancel out, and in theory at least, there is no sound at all.

Using sophisticated sound sampling and replicating technology, a phase cancellation system “listens” to the ambient noise in an environment, then produces a roughly identical noise of its own that is entirely out of phase with the original sound. In effect, one deafening roar is used to cancel out another. Such devices are being built into headsets for pilots, drivers, and machine operators. To the person wearing the headset, the ambient noise is reduced considerably (though not entirely, because it’s not a perfect world, after all), but other sounds are relatively unaffected.

Other possible uses of this technique are being explored, including the relief of tinnitus, or “ringing in the ears”. It is not yet known whether tinnitus is a purely neurological phenomenon that is merely perceived as sound, or, as some have conjectured, an actual sound in itself being produced by the ear. If it is, in fact, a real sound, then it may be possible to use phase cancellation to effectively “erase” the ringing by directing a very small, equal and opposite sound into the ear. However, as you can imagine, there are risks associated with this approach, and very little research has been done with human subjects.

Different Drummers

It’s nearly spring, and flickers and woodpeckers will soon be banging away at our houses and trees again. Everyone knows that they peck to find food or build nests, but there is another, less well-known reason – they may be “drumming.” When flickers and woodpeckers drum, they’re going purely for sound, announcing their presence to the neighborhood both to stake out their turf and to attract a mate.

This is the reason they often favor houses over trees, because they can get such a loud, resonant sound from the hollow space behind the siding. It’s also the reason that they often “play” on unlikely surfaces such as sheet metal, plastic, and even window panes. They’re simply looking for the best “instrument” they can find. Like bird calls and songs, each species of woodpecker and flicker has its own characteristic drumming “style.” Some drum faster, some slower, some favor shorter “phrases,” others favoring longer ones.

If a bird has adopted your house as its instrument, check to see if there’s any real damage before assuming that you have to take measures to scare the musician away. Usually drumming is fairly harmless – it’s the feeding and nesting forms of pecking you need to be concerned about. Of course, some birds like to go at it at sunrise, in which case you might decide to make a little “music” of your own.

© Copyright 2002 by Richard Middleton.
All rights reserved.

First published in Victory Review, March 2002.

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