electricity

[Morgan Hamilton Lang <mhl21@columbia.edu>]

I'm a bike freak and could go on about looping and
bikes, so in response to Michael's question
regarding looping in the absence of electricity,
what immediately comes to mind is the bicycle.
Everyone knows how to stick playing cards in the
spokes, but we could also use a stationary bike to
propel a whole series of, ahem, cyclic noisemaking
devices, leaving our hands free to play along on
the tuba or whatever. Fun and good for us, yes? A
room full of chain-driven musical machines. You
could have gear levers to "mute" some instruments
while starting others, allowing some instruments
to "freewheel" while others go into high gear.

Otherwise, windmills and water wheels could of
course be used to directly operate musical
machines without relying on electricity, whereas
solar panels, geothermal vent turbines, and
wave-action generators could all be used in
conjunction with AC converters and batteries and
stuff to produce electricity. Dennis' boiler would
work, too. If we had to, we would come up with our
own ways to make electricity. Maybe a subsequent
question would be: what sort of looping music
would you make if you had to keep your electrical
consumption to an absolute minimum by relying as
much as possible on mechanical means?

MHL.