A Cabinet of Musical Curiosities That Never Existed
(Isaac Asimov, 1945) Magnifico fairly hurled himself out of his seat and caught the multi-keyed instrument. He fingered the myriad knobby contacts and threw a sudden back somersault of joy, to the imminent destruction of the nearby furniture. He croaked, “A Visi-Sonor – and of a make to distill joy out of a dead man’s
J. G. Ballard, 1962 Nevers was switching on sculptures right and left like a lunatic magician, and the noise was a babel of competing sensocells, some of the statues responding to Lunora’s enigmatic presence, others to Nevers and the secretary. Lunora shook her head slowly, mouth hardening as the noise irritated her. “Yes, Mr. Nevers,”
(Carlos Salzedo, 1927) What follows is a sort of definitive prologue from the point of view of a harpist-composer toward the “harp-to-be.” …the instrument should be a still more powerful one, every part should be made larger. Then, there must be a total transformation in order to bring about the realization of the “Harp Idea”
(Jonathan Ulman, 2024) In the series “Snare Drums Reimagined,” percussionist Jonathan Ulman uses AI image generation to create snare drums from surprising and improbable materials – bricks, a television set, a quilt, for example. The images exemplify the photorealism of which generative AI is capable, presenting fantastical iterations on the snare drum as a musical
(La Nature, 1883) Father Kircher reports in Book VI of the Musurgia Universalis of an artist who invented, in order to dispel the melancholy of a prince who was beset by worries, a cat piano. Instead of strings, his instrument contained a number of cats’ tails inserted into narrow sheaths, beneath which there went up
(Jennifer Marie Brissett, 2015) My existence began in an organic soup of protein and integrated circuitry chips, swirling to form a harmony of life and machine. I remember hanging in my gestation sack, lined up in a room full others doing the same, when I heard sound for the first time. A single drip. I,
(J. J. Grandville, 1844) We have just witnessed the first humano-mechanical concert of the incomparable Dr. Puff. It would require a style as entrancing as Mozart and as majestic as Gluck to do justice to this grand event. Thanks to this admirable invention, we need no longer worry about singers catching cold, coming down with
(Anne McCaffrey, 1961) Singing as applicable to herself required research. She had, of course, been exposed to an enjoyed a music appreciation course that had included the better known classical works such as Tristan und Isolde, Candide, Oklahomea, and Noze de Figaro, along with the atomic age singers, Birgit Nilsson, Bob Dylan, and Geraldine Todd,
(Prospect, 2018) Personal Music Devices allow individuals to listen to their favorite songs whenever and wherever they wish with excellent musical fidelity. The headphone arrangement ensures that others are not bothered by the music. Albums of music files can be purchased on cylindrical storage devices, adorned with album art, that are inserted into the headphones for listening. the name
(Tania James, 2023) Hastily Du Leze draws atop the sketch, explaining how the tiger will be hollow, with a bellows in the head and a pipe organ in the body. A lateral slice just above the tiger’s ears will create a sort of lid, which, when removed, will expose the organ pipes. A door along