Larry Cotton's Screechophone

screech 1.jpg


Make contributor Larry Cotton says:

I built this bizarre musical instrument–based loosely on the playing-card-in-the-bicycle-spokes principle–a while back, shot a quick video, then cannibalized it for parts. As you'll see, the bicycle spokes were scaled down to a small white plastic gear. The card remained.

I called it a screechophone for reasons which will become obvious as you watch (and listen) to the video.

The whole thing was synced to accompanying music from a mini-CD through an ancient Commodore 64 computer, programmed in BASIC. A transparent disc printed only with black arcs spun with the CD and was read by a photocell.