Stethoscopes are acoustic listening devices used by medical professionals to listen to sounds inside the body. The first stethoscope was invented in 1816 by French doctor René Laënnec. He rolled up a piece of paper and on one end placed his ear, and placed the other end against his patient’s chest to listen to the ..read more

The Olympic Bell in East London’s Queen Elizabeth Park is the world’s largest tuned bell. It is 2 metres high and weighs 22 long tons. The bell is inscribed with the first line from Caliban’s speech in Shakespeare’s The Tempest: “Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises” The large bronze bell was created for the London 2012 Olympic Games by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. The Tempest Act 3 Scene 2 [Caliban] “Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears; and someti ..read more

Built between 1928 and 1935, these large concrete structures are placed along the Kent coast in England. They were designed as an early warning system to listen for the sound of approaching aeroplanes. However once radar technology was invented and used by the military these large structures we no longer required.   The post Discover: Denge Sound Mirrors appeared first on School of Noise ..read more

Chrome Music Lab is a website that makes learning music more accessible through fun, hands-on experiments. Try it for free here: https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com   The post Try: Chrome Music Lab appeared first on School of Noise ..read more

Foley sound can be heard in films, TV, computer games and animations. But what is Foley? When characters or props /objects on screen move around we expect them to make a sound. For example the crunching of footsteps walking on fresh snow, the click of a teacup being placed on a saucer, or the schwing sound of a sword being removed from its scabbard. These movements usually have a sound that our brains would associate with them. We call these sounds Foley. When they are added to film, TV etc they are performed by sound actors known as Foley artists. Named after Jack Foley, who pioneered th ..read more

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In 1981, the American triple jumper Willie Banks began his usual routine of clapping three times before launching into his run-up. There was nothing unusual about this until several people in the crowd responded by clapping back. As the competition progressed, more and more people joined in every time Banks took his turn. To this day spectators still clap along with long-jump and triple-jump athletes during their run-up. The post Discover: Willie Banks appeared first on School of Noise ..read more

Ableton, a company specialising in software for recording, editing and performing sound, have updated their already excellent online tutorial that takes you through the building blocks of how a synthesiser works. This is great fun to play around with and explore sculpting sounds! Try it here: https://learningsynths.ableton.com The post Try: Ableton Learning Synths appeared first on School of Noise ..read more

The first song to be performed in space was a Ukrainian folk song called “Watching the Sky and Thinking a Thought”. It was performed by Ukrainian cosmonaut Pavlo Popovych on 12 August 1962. “Jingle Bells” became the first song to be played in space using a musical instrument. On 16 December 1965, it was played on a harmonica and bells by astronauts Wally Schirra and Thomas P. Stafford during NASA’s Gemini 6A space flight. The post Discover: First Songs in Space appeared first on School of Noise ..read more

All we can say is if you haven’t tried playing with the Blob Opera yet, please do! It is one of the most enjoyable music-making tools we’ve ever played with https://g.co/arts/kwc1vdkMhwjqNbZy8 Although it seems easy to use, under the surface, over 16 hours of real opera singing was fed into a computer which using Artificial Intelligent (AI) neural networks learnt what opera singing sounds like. This data is then used to produce the sounds heard when playing with the blobs. Here is a short video on the making of the Blob Opera: Making Blob Opera with David Li The post Try: Blob Opera appeared f ..read more