We’re in the middle of a snowstorm of holidays (most definitely plural), and, for many of you, possibly also a snowstorm of snow. So, gather by the fire with your robotic DIY carillon and bask in the warm glow of gorgeous, chimey Prokofiev.

What? Haven’t got a DIY bell-playing construction of your own? It’s not snowing? Gather by the YouTube and bask in its warm glow instead. Robotic Prokofiev will be all you need. Creator Sarah Angliss of Spacedog sends us the video above.

Video details and technical specs:

Fireside music, performed for your enjoyment in one take after a couple of glasses at the Spacedog HQ, Christmas Eve 2008. Featuring Dolly, the Lakeland Terrier who has hurt her paw.

Bell rig created and programmed by Sarah Angliss (Spacedog UK), camera Colin Uttley.

Microphone-festooned coat hanger expertly held for the full three and a half minutes by Jenny Angliss. www.spacedog.biz

The music is an adaptation of Troika, from Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kije.

The bells are being played by wooden balls, spring-mounted on servo-controlled beaters, running off a LynxMotion SSC-32 board, receiving serial signals from a Max/MSP patch (which is interpreting a midi file). NB These bells have been recycled from Swinging London, my 2006 installation for the Overture Weekend at the South Bank, London. Here they’ve been mounted on a stainless steel shop fitting, reclaimed from the back yard of Moore’s of Dunstable.

Dolly, feel better!

Previously from Spacedog:

Theremin as AV Controller: Technical Details from Spacedog

Video: Robotic Theremins, Ready To Replace a Human Near You

Paul Lansky, a titanic name in classical computer music, Princeton professor, and real-time algorithmic pioneer, has gone acoustic. He’s also known in more popular circles for having been musically quoted on Radiohead’s Kid A. The New York Times reports:

After 35 years immersed in the world of computer music, the composer Paul Lansky talks with wonder about the enormous capacities of primitive objects carved from trees or stamped from metal sheets: violins, cellos, trumpets, pianos.

"To create the sound of a violin – wow!" he said in a recent interview. "I can’t do that on a computer."

Paul Lansky: An electronic-music pioneer pulls the plug

The Times seems to want to spin this as the end of an era. But while it correctly argues that electronic music is out of the lab and onto the laptop, to me this is more about Lansky’s own personal reinvention. I like this quote:

“Here I am, 64, and I find myself at what feels like the beginning of a career.”

What does music look like? With new sounds and new technologies, the question is more apt than ever. Tom of Music thing points, via his Twitter feed, to this interesting post regarding Ligeti’s Artikulation:

Visualizing Artikulation [Bad Assembly]

Music notation takes on a different meaning in the age of computers. After all, the essential divide in notation – between sound representation and realization – is blurred in the digital domain, in which we move between visual and sonic information seamlessly and a sound can be reproduced exactly. But, perhaps in that fluid context and without the musical conventions that grew up with notation, the importance of notation becomes that much clearer.

In this case, the classic experimental electronic composition Artikulation by composer György Ligeti has already had a visual score associated with it. Rainer Wehinger created the visuals above after the fact as an “aural score,” intending visuals to present a visible “reading” of the sounds of the piece. That makes the score itself closer to the digital visualizations we see as motion graphics works all over the Web (and on our sister site Create Digital Motion). The point isn’t to create a set of instructions by which you can perform a piece, but a visual counterpart that allows you to (presumably) hear it differently.

To be honest, I’m not always certain what to make of these results. Does this score really help you hear the piece? I’m curious to hear different reactions. But I wonder if the real holy grail comes back to software and interface. Seeing a pre-composed score is already interesting. But make that score interactive, and, in short, you have music creation software. Perhaps we’ll get beyond simple sequencers and step sequencers and start to see a growing number of interactive software designs that play around with that concept. (See Tom’s other thoughts on that today as he looks to Audio Damage’s new Automaton plug-in.)

Side Note: Twittering

If you want to follow us music bloggers on Twitter, I’m (uncreatively) peterkirn; Tom Whitwell is tombola. FriendFeed for me is the same. I haven’t made a CDM Twitter account; if for some reason that interested you, let me know, but otherwise I’m inclined to think RSS is just fine.

And if you have Twitters/FriendFeeds you think I should follow, please do holler.

Custom electric violin builder E.F. Keebler goes a little over the top with instruments like his Inferno. Pimp my violin, indeed: this is the first acoustic instrument I’ve ever seen that I can confidently say is NOT street legal. Take a look at these specs:

1. 79 LEDs in the fingerboard in a flame pattern, reponsive to motion and playing
2. 92 LEDs on the side for a flickering-flame effect, also responsive to music
3. 12 additional flame lights
4. Custom flame shell with custom engraving and airbrushing
5. Pewter sculpted devil’s head, designed by the late fantasy artist James Lane Casey
6. Laser-powered eyes and a spark-shooting mouth

E.F. Keebler Violins

You’ll pay a few grand for all the options, but it’s not just for show: Keebler’s designs are customized for playability, too. But, for you DIY types, you just have to appreciate the guts inside:

That’s just the beginning: electric violins are a must-have for music students, rockers, and (for some reason) crossover classical women wearing latex catsuits:

The original design of the violin is a classic, but that hasn’t stopped people from trying to improve upon it with modern tech.

While it looks mostly like an ordinary bow, the Hyperbow is designed to electronically measure gestures and calculate force, speed, and bow-bridge distance, thanks to accelerometers, gyroscopes, and force sensors. The bow, designed by MIT Media Lab Ph.D. candidate Diana Young, began as a way to measure different bowing techniques. But combined with MIT’s Hyperviolin, the all-electronic/non-acoustic violin also developed by the MIT Media Lab, the bow can unleash new means of making music with violins. If you’ve seen this before, it’s because Young has been working on it for several years and presenting it as it develops; the Hyperviolin for its part has been played by the likes of Joshua Bell. Here, Diana Young is pictured with Hyperbow and Hyperviolin from earlier this summer. (Photo: Donna Coveney, MIT News.)

Grad student’s Hyperbow makes music to measure [MIT News]
ASA paper abstract [Acoustical Society of America]
Video and audio clips, Toy Symphony (Featuring Hyperviolin)

So, what do you think? Innovation or reinventing the … um …. bow?