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Back in 1994, Mari Kimura introduced the world to a whole new way to play the violin — using subharmonics. Basically, she can produce notes that are up to an octave above and an octave below a violin’s normal range, transforming it from a glass-like synthesizer to a booming cello. (Here’s an audio file of her playing an octave below open G, the violin’s lowest note.)
The thing is, not even Kimura can explain exactly how she does it. So a bunch of scientists at the University of Tromso in Norway recently brought her into an echo-free chamber to record some subharmonic playing; they’re currently studying the data and trying to figure it out. As they explain in this press release:
“Kimura makes a violin string vibrate in a totally new way. In physics we call this a driven and damped non-linear system, which we are particularly preoccupied with in our research. By understanding the way she plays the violin, we are contributing to understanding of similar processes in the nature”, says Hanssen. [snip]
“I have done this for ten years, and the researchers in US and Japan have tried to figure it out for as long. I don’t really know what it is I do, because I have an empirical approach to it. It all happens by the method of trial and error,” says Kimura.
Kimura has written several primers on her technique in the past, and taught several students how to do this — but neither she nor other subharmonicizers has adequately described what the hell they’re doing with that bow. She can describe the fretwork fairly well, as she does here, but the bow magic seems to be a matter of “feel”.
I’ll be intrigued to see what the Norwegian folks find out! Kimura has written several pieces specifically for a subharmonically-played violin — some links to audio files are here online — and they’re quite creepily beautiful to listen to. My favorite is the ending to this snippet of “Subharmonic 2nd”, where Kimura fades out on a quiet blizzard of subharmonic noise; it sounds like a couple of ghost violins muttering at you from a different plane of existence. Check out the way-kewl special notations she’s invented for scripting subharmonic playing.
If she ever plays this stuff live in New York I am so there.
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
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September 26, 2008 » 01:57 PM
From an interview with ethnobotanist and anthropologist Wade Davis:
One of the cultures you celebrate in Light at the Edge of the World is the Inuit. What do you most admire about them?
Davis: The Inuit didn’t fear the cold; they took advantage of it. During the 1950s the Canadian government forced the Inuit into settlements. A family from Arctic Bay told me this fantastic story of their grandfather who refused to go. The family, fearful for his life, took away all of his tools and all of his implements, thinking that would force him into the settlement. But instead, he just slipped out of an igloo on a cold Arctic night, pulled down his caribou and sealskin trousers, and defecated into his hand. As the feces began to freeze, he shaped it into the form of an implement. And when the blade started to take shape, he put a spray of saliva along the leading edge to sharpen it. That’s when what they call the “shit knife” took form. He used it to butcher a dog. Skinned the dog with it. Improvised a sled with the dog’s rib cage, and then, using the skin, he harnessed up an adjacent living dog. He put the shit knife in his belt and disappeared into the night.
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“Funniest FB friend request ever: “Twitter friend hoping to get to second base (Facebook!) ;-).”” - A recent Tweet by Pistachio
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