Los just launched their Kickstarter in support for their new album. Kickstarter is a website that helps raise funds for DIY projects. Just ask our psychedelic stove-top friend below. Los Doggies needs your help to finish mixing, mastering, and printing the new album. With your kind donations, you’ll help us cover the costs of completing […]
Archive of entries posted by
American Indian War Chant
The American Indian War Chant is a popular melody sung at sporting events1. There’s even a dance craze that goes along with it—the tomahawk chop. Fans of tribe-inspired teams sing the War Chant in perfect 4/4 time, set to an “ooga chaka” beat, while tomahawking with their right hands on the downbeats (usually the 1’s […]
Homebody
Is there anything sweeter than the atonal sound of your own name? Perhaps, maybe the lost melody of home? For those who’ve lived and lost, the memories and melodies of home stay with us, like an alpha earworm. If our names are sung (unless you speak a tonal language like Mandarin), the melody will sound […]
Invasion of the Face Snatchers
The new Windows 8.0 sound scheme is an F major 7th—the popular FACE chord. Every alarm, ding, and orchestra hit error sound that once rang true to their namesake, has been replaced with a suite of electronic dance samples. I guess it’s the future, or something. The Critical Stop Sound is now a D Minor […]
Microwaveforms
The home microwave oven is yet another dubious musical instrument—like the television and the car horn—that is tuned completely wrong. Dead flat wrong. It drones the same flat tone below, as it beeps octaves above—the “flattened B” of the groaning grid tone, the same tone most machines moan. These ‘psych-out sounds’, or ‘made-ya-listens’, sure make […]
Quoth Kurdt, Nirvanamore
The band Nirvana was a unique tonal experiment at the close of the 20th century. Unlike many grunge bands (or any bands really), Nirvana’s unique sound was due to timbre (the sound of screaming vocals and distorted guitars), as much as it was to tonality (the arrangement of the notes into a key). They meddled […]
Baby’s Got Bars and Tones
The television test screen, known as “bars and tones”, is used to calibrate color and sound on a TV screen or computer monitor. The accompanying tone—the soundtrack to this minimalist music video—is a high sharp B that stations use to tune TV’s. But at 1000 Hz, the bars-and-tones tone is a quarter-tone sharper than the […]
