Comments on: The Cloud Harp

The Cloud Harp

nickyskye — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 04:37:47 -0800

The Cloud Harp. The transposition of a natural phenomenon into music. The melodies and sounds are determined by factors such as cloud height, density, structure, luminosity, and meteorological conditions.

By: dhruva

dhruva — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 05:13:19 -0800

[this is good] Thanks.

By: peacay

peacay — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 05:38:05 -0800

You're a veritable mathemARTician. That was cirriusly puffy. I'm not sure there'll be a cd and tour though. A+ for strange.

By: sexymofo

sexymofo — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 06:19:32 -0800

And Pittsburgh is a great place for it since the weather runs the gamut from partly cloudly to mostly cloudy.

By: quonsar

quonsar — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 06:48:10 -0800

beyond the gimmicky/geeky angle, i don't get this appreciation for arbitrarily / randomly generated sound. seems to me the whole POINT of music is that a human being conceives and arranges and reproduces an audible experience which moves and inspires other human beings. it seems to me the equivalent of looking for inspiration in the output of a thousand monkeys with typewriters. or tieing words and sentences to the attributes of clouds and hoping for great literature.

By: rolypolyman

rolypolyman — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 06:49:30 -0800

Where are the sound samples? I must be missing something.

By: peacay

peacay — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 07:10:14 -0800

If I remember, on the first page, go to Chicago.

By: climalene

climalene — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 08:10:50 -0800

The first Pittsburgh file (low clouds) sounds like a speeded-up recording of Kermit the Frog humming to himself. This is neato -- thanks.

By: Kirth Gerson

Kirth Gerson — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 08:28:36 -0800

Then there are wind harps. Much less dynamic than the cloud harps. The Pittsburgh low clouds file sounds like R2-D2 to me.

By: Rothko

Rothko — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 12:10:18 -0800

Wonderful link. Thank you.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 12:25:38 -0800

You're punny dear peacay, metaphors be with you. Thanks, the A+ is a real stratus symbol. The fantasy of cloud music was for me a lot better than the reality of this cloud harp and I agree, it does rather sound a bit like R2-D2, maybe the sound of his rem dream states or something? As a child of a playful scientist father (props to him on Father's Day), who taught me to sing about the sun being a mass of incandescent gas, I still associate fun and science together.

By: LooseFilter

LooseFilter — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 14:48:07 -0800

This is very cool--it's quite interesting to be able to "hear" clouds this way, and the science behind it could translate to lots of different applications. But I wouldn't call it music, definitely not. Music (all art) does share one element: intention. As quonsar points out, this is fundamental to what art is--something from one human being to another. Intent is critical in art-making. [My favorite--and most succinct--definition of music comes from the composer Martin Mailman: "Music is sound and silence, in time, with intent."]

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 15:28:35 -0800

Defining music, whoa, big subject. There's plenty of supposed music there is intolerable to me, well intentioned or not, but I do think there is some sound magic, music, like singing whales, in this cloud harp, even if it isn't obviously melodic.

By: kozad

kozad — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 17:33:56 -0800

I still have a 'wind harp" record, dating from long before the above entry. An LP. Believe me, it is more beautiful than the strange truncated windharp soundfile available above. It is soothing in a more avant-garde way than most of that pathetically simplistic New Age music. BTW, that cloud music sounded like 50's Milton Babbitt to me. Or any other random (!) electronic music composer form that era.

By: Viomeda

Viomeda — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 18:14:13 -0800

Where did "wind harp" come from? What happened to the classic term Aeolian harp, which has better implications.

By: Viomeda

Viomeda — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 18:15:59 -0800

"Cloud Harp" ? same confusion