Posts Tagged ‘Lonnie Johnson’
“How low can you go?”*…
… Pretty low if you have an octobass– which the Montreal Symphony now does…
The Montreal Symphony Orchestra has just become the only ensemble in the world to employ an octobass… Here it is dwarfing its new orchestra mates in Montreal:
“This is an octobass – it’s so low it will turn your insides to jelly,” @classicfm
Because of the extreme fingerboard length and string thickness, the musician plays it using a system of levers and pedals which engage metal clamps that are positioned above the neck at specific positions and act as fretting devices.
The octobass, which typically plays a full octave below the double bass, has never been produced on a large scale nor (though Hector Berlioz wrote favorably about the instrument and proposed its widespread adoption) used much by composers. Indeed, The only known work from the 19th century that specifically calls for the octobass is Charles Gounod‘s Messe solennelle de Sainte–Cécile.
Per Berlioz, the octobass’ three open strings were tuned C1, G1, and C2. The fundamental frequencies of the lowest notes in this tuning lie below 20 Hz—the commonly-understood lower bound of the human hearing range—still, these notes are audible due to the overtones they produce. More interesting these inaudible lowest notes (like the 32′ stop on an organ)– known as “infrasound“– elicit a physical reaction: feelings of awe or fear. It has also been suggested that since it is not consciously perceived, it may make people feel vaguely that odd or supernatural events are taking place. In any case, it’s why sound designers in thrillers and horror movies mix infrasound into the tracks at moments meant to be tense or frightening.
* “Born to Hand Jive,” Grease
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As we stretch, we might recall that it was on this date in 1925 that Lonnie Johnson made his first recording, “Mr. Johnson’s Blues,” in a session for OKeh Records. A Blues guitar innovator, his music fueled a blues craze throughout the rest of the decade and influences the next generation of blues and folk musicians.
Johnson was also a talented pianist and violinist, and is is recognized as the first to play an electrically-amplified violin.
“Looky now. Water. Gun?”*…
(R)D has taken a look at the best water pistols of all time; now, a more considered look at their history…
The water gun followed the chronological arc of the sports card and the comic book: it existed for decades upon decades, largely unchanged, and then the 1990s — the decade that paved over everything, and has since itself been paved over like the cut-rate, busted-up Quikrete it was — got its hands on it. These things mutated into garish, sardonic commentaries of themselves…
It was the Super Soaker (which went on sale in the summer of 1989) that changed everything:
It was a borderline miracle: a water gun that actually worked. After 50 or so years of nonsense, someone finally bothered to invent an actual decent gun. That someone is Lonnie Johnson, who helped invent the stealth bomber and later joined NASA to help send a probe to Jupiter, but all that junk comes after the table of contents in his Wikipedia entry. The lede is all about the Super Soaker… Its success inspired an arsenal of increasingly weird and even-less-necessary water guns…
More at “The stupid history of water guns.”
* “Stripe,” Gremlins 6
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As we fill ’em up, we might recall that it was on this date in 1849 that Lewis Phectic Haslett was granted the first patent for a gas mask. In fact, Haslett was building on a long tradition: the ancient Greeks used sponges as make-shift gas masks, and the Banu Musa brothers in Baghdad described a rudimentary gas mask (for protecting workers in polluted wells) in their wonder-full 9th century Book of Ingenious Devices. Still, Haslett’s creation was the forerunner of the modern gas mask.
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