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I pulled one of my old paperbacks off the shelf today (not too old, only about 50 years), and have been re-reading The Little World of Don Camillo. English translation, of course. Halfway through the book, I suddenly remembered that I used to read this one backwards.
My friend Dave and I sometimes messed around with open-reel tape, which has several advantages for messing around. For one, it has different speeds, making it possible to record stuff in chipmunk voices. We did Chip and Dale at the parade, chanting "One! Two! Three! Four! We don't want your BLEEEEP war!" (We said Bleep, though the real protesters we saw in Denver said something different.) Conversely, it allowed us to try and talk in chipmunk voices, then slow the tape down and see if we sounded normal again. Never did.
Multitracking was possible, though it wasn't a unique function of open-reel tape. I recorded myself singing "Chopsticks" in three voices (somewhere in grade school I learned another part) and, as they say, impressed my friends.
The other great diversion was giving the tape a half twist so that the playback head was reading the other side of the tape, which made it come out backwards. First we listened to ourselves backwards, and that was entertaining. Then I worked on reading passages of text backwards, and seeing if I could get something that sounded normal when reversed. I don't know what page it was, but I do believe my selection was from the very same book I'm now re-reading. It never sounded completely natural, but I was pretty good at learning backwards inflections that were intelligible if somewhat odd. There are some sounds that just don't have a natural way of being pronounced in reverse, but if the tape is reversed, they do indeed have a sound. Imitating that sound is challenging.
Once again, it's possible to do some of the things open-reel tape could do. I don't have an easy way to change 'tape' speed (though I have a double deck that allows double speed, and that can be used in limited ways, if I wanted to bring that deck out from wherever it's stored). I can reverse five or ten seconds of sound on one of my sampling keyboards. I'd mostly like to be able to overdub, and I think Sound Forge will allow that.
Sooner or later, Sarah will find some or all of that at least a bit amusing. I wonder when the best time to spring it would be. Too soon, and she'll lose interest rapidly.
.
I pulled one of my old paperbacks off the shelf today (not too old, only about 50 years), and have been re-reading The Little World of Don Camillo. English translation, of course. Halfway through the book, I suddenly remembered that I used to read this one backwards.
My friend Dave and I sometimes messed around with open-reel tape, which has several advantages for messing around. For one, it has different speeds, making it possible to record stuff in chipmunk voices. We did Chip and Dale at the parade, chanting "One! Two! Three! Four! We don't want your BLEEEEP war!" (We said Bleep, though the real protesters we saw in Denver said something different.) Conversely, it allowed us to try and talk in chipmunk voices, then slow the tape down and see if we sounded normal again. Never did.
Multitracking was possible, though it wasn't a unique function of open-reel tape. I recorded myself singing "Chopsticks" in three voices (somewhere in grade school I learned another part) and, as they say, impressed my friends.
The other great diversion was giving the tape a half twist so that the playback head was reading the other side of the tape, which made it come out backwards. First we listened to ourselves backwards, and that was entertaining. Then I worked on reading passages of text backwards, and seeing if I could get something that sounded normal when reversed. I don't know what page it was, but I do believe my selection was from the very same book I'm now re-reading. It never sounded completely natural, but I was pretty good at learning backwards inflections that were intelligible if somewhat odd. There are some sounds that just don't have a natural way of being pronounced in reverse, but if the tape is reversed, they do indeed have a sound. Imitating that sound is challenging.
Once again, it's possible to do some of the things open-reel tape could do. I don't have an easy way to change 'tape' speed (though I have a double deck that allows double speed, and that can be used in limited ways, if I wanted to bring that deck out from wherever it's stored). I can reverse five or ten seconds of sound on one of my sampling keyboards. I'd mostly like to be able to overdub, and I think Sound Forge will allow that.
Sooner or later, Sarah will find some or all of that at least a bit amusing. I wonder when the best time to spring it would be. Too soon, and she'll lose interest rapidly.
.
