How to play music with barbed wire and chainsaws

Jon Rose is an Australian violinist/artist/composer who has done many cool things. here (QT link) is a clip of him playing barbed wire with a violin bow: "One aspect of the barbed wire fence that appeals to me is that it becomes very clear where the notes are - if you miss'em it's quite painful. Also the scale articulated by the barbs is extremely unorthodox and about as far as you can get from the equal tempered scale upon which most western music is played. But the tyranny of the equal tempered scale is not a subject upon which we should dwell in the middle of an Australian desert.".
And here he is conducting an orchestra made up of violinists, a drummer, a pianist and several chainsaw players. There's a lot more interesting stuff, including a MIDI bow being demonstrated on daytime TV, at this page. (Thanks Sam)

Akai MPC1000 now really does play Pong

Now we can all play Pong with Philip Glass piano samples. JJ - the mysterious Japanese hacker who has re-written the operating system for the Akai MPC1000 - has had a super productive xmas. After fixing the file system (Akai left a bug which caused nasty file problems), adding a features from the more expensive MPC2500, and all new stuff like proper visual MIDI editing, he's started having fun. This video (my first on YouTube!) shows the custom loading screen and the long promised but not quite delivered Pong, which triggers samples of your choice (it also does something over MIDI, but I'm not sure what). If you have an MPC1000, you can get the $30 upgrade here. If you don't have an MPC1000, you can buy one here.
Previous MPC video action here and here .

Korg MS20 number 1 is on sale in Japan

I've covered the legendary Japanese synth shop Five G in the past, but Steven writes to point out that on this page they're selling an MS20 with the serial number '1' for ¥207,900 ($1,700). They seem to sell a lot of MS20s, usually for a hardly any more reasonable ¥98k ($825). If you're in the area, could you sneak in and get us a picture of the serial number?

It's... just like... painting with sound

Visual Acoustics is an nice online sound toy (or "Concept for interactive expression") - click, drag, it's fun. The software is by Alex Lampe, but the unfortunate words come from Lewis Moberly, a beyond-parody naming consultancy ("We created 'Ride the Tiger' for the Human Resources Programme at Novartis Consumer Health. Challenging and evocative, it commands attention in a multi-national institution") (Thanks Scott)

Beat-making with Ali-G

Brandon writes: "I know you must get a lot of emails linking to "How to make beats on the MPC" videos, but as an American, after watching Making a club beat on the MPC4000 I finally realize that some people in the UK actually do talk like Ali G." Seems to come from an organisation called Creative Mindsuk, who have a half-finished website: "C.M also offer services ‘for hire’...Promotional Flyering/ leafleting, Brand representation (in person or via modelled photos),Street-bookings ... Once you are happy with the proposal & allocated provisions, you will be invoiced and hey presto… your good to go…"

OMG!

This great video from my new all-time favourite synth blog ever: Chip Collection.

Music geek fun with Google Patents Search

Last week Google introduced their Patent Search site, which searches patents going back hundreds of years. What could be more fun? Here is Bob Moog's patent for the Moog 'ladder' Filter, filed in 1966 and granted in 1969. This seems to be John M Chowning's patent for FM synthesis, which earned $20m for Stanford when Yamaha licensed it for the DX7. Here is Leon Theremin's 1925 patent for the Theremin. Here is Leo Fender's pickup patent from 1944 (here is Les Paul's). Here is the Synthaxe, here is the Fender Jaguar Jazzmaster, from 1959. Here is a fantastically cool 'Electric Self-Playing Violin' from 1905, and here is Anacleto Montanelli's Electrical Musical Instrument from 1893. Here is the Rhodes piano from 1964... and so on. Anyone found anything cool?
UPDATE: Rather than randomly putting words into Google, Don Tillman has actually researched this stuff. Here are his surveys of patents from: Moog, ARP and Mellotron/Birotron.

UPDATE 2: Casionova claims to have found the patent for the Demo Button, although I'm sure they had them before 1986. He also found this super-awesome Casio electric harmonica ("a main body having a plurality of ducts").
UPDATE 3: Eddie has found this 'Electronic Percussion Musical Instrument' designed by Florian Schneider and Ralf Hutter from Kraftwerk in 1975 (it's only an 'ornamental design' though).