Thursday, October 23, 2008

frequency/pitches found around the apartment

I was thinking about the noises that create room ambiance and started to get curious about isolating some of those noises. The one obvious one in our apartment is the hum of the refrigerator. To hear it better I opened up the freezer and noticed that the frequencies created a dominant tone. I rushed to the piano and determined that the tone I heard was a B flat. I was curious to see if I could find pitches in other noises.

The hairdryer at high was also a B flat but the low was an E flat. Ooh – an open fifth!
The electric toothbrush was a low E, the hair clipper an A and the Gillette fusion razor a B.

The phone dial tone was an F & A: The 1 button a D with an F# bass, the 2 button an E with an F# bass, 3 button F#, 4 button D with a G bass 5 button E with a G bass, 6 button F# with a G bass, 7 button D with an A bass, 8 button E with an A bass, 9 F# with an A bass, * button D with a Bb bass, 0 button E with a Bb bass, # button F# with a Bb bass.

I started thinking it might be fun to create a musical piece using pitches from unusual sources…

1 comment:

Jim Briggs said...

This is such a great idea, Richard! I'd love to hear you execute it.