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Moving Parts Make Holiday Music
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A bike manufacturer commissioned composer Flip Baber to create holiday music using only bicycle parts.
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"Since Jingle Bells is a little overdone this time of year, I thought Tchaikovsky's 'Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy' (from the Nutcracker Suite) would be a great alternative," Baber says. "At first I didn't think it could be done, but as I recorded hundreds of sounds from a road bike and mountain bike it started to take shape."
Here are the mechanical ingredients he used:
• Glockenspiel and clarinet melody: Spokes.
• Cello and violin pizzicatos: Plucked derailleur cables.
• Triangle: Disc brake hit.
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• Percussion: Shifting, coasting, finger over turning spokes, chain pulls, braking, clipping into pedals, back-spinning, air out of tires.
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