The seemingly complex and brilliant structure/ instrument ‘the WinterGatan” has 2000 marbles at its disposal, trickling up and down its skeleton to trigger the instruments within. Whilst an intelligently put contraption, this idea of limitations comes into play as the melodies and rhythms one can procure from the machine are tonally bound to its capabilities of what the marbles can trigger. Whilst other more traditional instruments would allow for more control. Is any instrument really free of limitation or is it that limitation that breeds the creative spark in the first place?
In one of the other videos, Your Brain on Sound: Aural Illusions, MP3, and Psychoacoustics, Jack Moffitt describes differing ways in which we percieve sound. One technique used by many composers for visuals, called Shephard Tones stood out to me as particularly interesting. A sound loop that tricks the brain into thinking its continually going down in pitch by layering multiple sine waves that move in differing directions.