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Here watching an exhibit of a musical Tesla coil at the Rochester Science Center in Rochester NY.

I'd never seen a Tesla Coil that made music; I had built a (non-musical) one back many years ago in High School.

Adding the music really became possible (or at least practical) with the advent of solid state high-voltaage high power electronics. The RF generated by the device is pulse modulated to generate the "tone".

Since one of these can only generate a single tone at any given moment, they have programmed two of them to generate harmony. And they use a conventional digital audio source fed through speakers to provide a further backing track.

My steelpan playing friends should listen carefully to the backing track to "Under the Sea" in the last video. It certainly sounds to me that their is a pan (steel drum to the uninitiated) in the track, particularly in the second half of the video.

August 9, 2022

Author

John Schmidt

Created on

Thursday 5 January 2023

Keywords

August 2022, Musical Tesla Cioil, Rochester NY, RochesterMuseum & Science Center, Tesla Coil

Albums

• My Travels / Travels in Upstate New York to Niagara Falls and Beyond, 2022 / The Musical Tesla Coil at the Rochester Museum & Science Center

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