Whistling In The Margins

OR


Why Your Folks'll Hate You 




Must be recipes online. How to build, whatnot. 


I don't build, I combine. Stuff abounds. Stuff I have. Suggest likewise for you, any and all. If you got this stuff, stuff like it and the interest, give it a try.  


Standard CMA Boilerplate -- don't blame me if things blow up, break, vaporize the universe, your brain, first born, whoever, whatnot. Enjoy responsibly.


So, a combination of goofy onhand gizmos to make fuzzy fake theremin sounds --notably get three radios that operate on AM band, put them near each other, only use the sound of one, tune them to cause the audible radio to oscillate/whistle etc., try moving/tuning radios in relation to each other to alter pitch/volume, also use hand proximity to tuning dials to alter pitch. Walkmen, any not so new radios with tuning & volume dials, thumb wheel controls, are good candidates for this. Explore. Mix & match.


Okay, shorthand for three AM radio based theremin set up done. Will skip personal stories. Suffice it to say just having this stuff around is an implicit biography. What you have, keep, use is the same.


Tweaking ability such as is, acuity, is related to my life long & ongoing TV addiction, learning young in the messy, overbuilt analog world. Oldish radios that can interact, fail/succeed in these subtle ways, are a very late solid state hangover of that world into the present one. Digital control and encoding and other such are meant to sidestep and eradicate all that. To have any awareness or rapport with that old weird tangle is to be at least a bit old & weird & tangled oneself. So, hey, there's that.


Other stuff that can get you into more trouble, indicate an enduring, if anti-social, playfulness. FM band feedback.


If one happens to have an FM band mini transmitter (like those that used to abound as handy short range wireless signal gadgets--mine was a stray hand-me-down--or diy tweakers may yet find kits if so inclined, dunno), the transmission can be a multiple connection, to various radios etc. And one can loop the signal through an FM radio to create feedback. All sorts of happenstance factors can alter the response. Volume, tone, tuning
controls,  speakers,room tone/eq (if feedback loop is done open air) are all factors that too fun & performative to be considered entirely rationally. So it goes.


But remember the boilerplate. Ears,speakers, circuits, brain may never be the same. Or they may do just fine. Can't promise. But if curious, willing to find out, well