![Craig Huxley blaster beam June 2012](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Craig_Huxley_blaster_beam_June_2012.jpg)
The blaster beam is a concept
electric musical instrument consisting of a 12 to long metal beam strung with numerous tensed wires under which are mounted
electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gu ...
pickups which can be moved to alter the sound produced. The instrument is played by striking or plucking the strings with fingers, sticks, pipes or even large objects such as artillery shell casings. The instrument produces a very distinctive bass tone, the sound of which is often described as 'dark' or 'sinister'.
The blaster beam was designed by John Lazelle in the early 1970s, and was first widely used by
Francisco Lupica who built several out of iron. American child-actor-turned-musician
Craig Huxley created his own refined version of the beam out of aluminum which was brought to fame in the soundtrack for ''
Star Trek: The Motion Picture'' (1979) in which composer
Jerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King Goldsmith (February 10, 1929July 21, 2004) was an American composer and conductor known for his work in film and television scoring. He composed scores for five films in the ''Star Trek'' franchise and three in the ''Rambo'' franch ...
used the instrument to create the signature
V'ger sound. Earlier that year, Huxley performed his custom-built blaster beam on
Robert Prince's score for the season three ''
Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman is a superhero created by the American psychologist and writer William Moulton Marston (pen name: Charles Moulton), and artist Harry G. Peter. Marston's wife, Elizabeth Holloway Marston, Elizabeth, and their life partner, Olive Byr ...
'' episode "Spaced Out". The instrument was also used by composer
James Horner
James Roy Horner (August 14, 1953 – June 22, 2015) was an American composer. He was known for the integration of choral and electronic elements, and for his frequent use of motifs associated with Celtic music.
Horner's first film score was in ...
for several of his early soundtracks, including ''
Battle Beyond the Stars
''Battle Beyond the Stars'' is a 1980 American space opera film produced by Roger Corman, directed by Jimmy T. Murakami, and starring Richard Thomas, Robert Vaughn, George Peppard, John Saxon, Sybil Danning and Darlanne Fluegel. Intended as ...
'' (1980) and ''
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan'' (1982),
Michael Stearns
Michael Stearns (born October 16, 1948) is an American musician and composer of ambient music. He is also known as a film composer, sound designer and soundtrack producer for large format films, theatrical films, documentaries, commercials, and ...
for his score to the
IMAX film ''
Chronos
Chronos (; grc-gre, Χρόνος, , "time"), also spelled Khronos or Chronus, is a personification of time in pre-Socratic philosophy and later literature.
Chronos is frequently confused with, or perhaps consciously identified with, the Tita ...
'', and in
David Shire's soundtrack to ''
2010'' (1984), which score was co-written by Huxley. Huxley also played the instrument on the
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (born March 14, 1933) is an American record producer, musician, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. His career spans 70 years in the entertainment industry with a record of 80 Grammy Award n ...
song, "
Ai No Corrida
''In the Realm of the Senses'' (french: link=no, L'Empire des sens, Japanese: , ''Ai no Korīda'', "Bullfight of Love") is a 1976 erotic art film written and directed by Nagisa Ōshima. It is a fictionalised and sexually explicit treatment of a ...
”.
Huxley successfully patented his design of the beam in 1984.
The instrument has since been used to create dark unnatural sounds in other movie soundtracks in the late 1970s and early 1980s, including the films ''
The Black Hole
''The Black Hole'' is a 1979 American science fiction film directed by Gary Nelson and produced by Walt Disney Productions. The film stars Maximilian Schell, Robert Forster, Joseph Bottoms, Yvette Mimieux, Anthony Perkins and Ernest Borgnin ...
'', ''
Forbidden World
''Forbidden World'', originally titled ''Mutant'', is a 1982 American science fiction- horror film. The screenplay was written by Tim Curnen, from a screenstory by R.J. Robertson and Jim Wynorski. It was co-edited and directed by Allan Holzman, ...
'', ''
Dreamscape'', and ''
Meteor
A meteoroid () is a small rocky or metallic body in outer space.
Meteoroids are defined as objects significantly smaller than asteroids, ranging in size from grains to objects up to a meter wide. Objects smaller than this are classified as mi ...
'', in the last of which it was used during shots of the giant looming meteorite as it approached
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
. It has also been used by new age artists including
Kitaro, Stearns and Huxley. The blaster beam was also used for the seismic charge sound used by Jango Fett, in ''
Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones''.
Some more unexpected attention came in the early nineties when several women attending a music concert in New York's Central Park claimed to have been
stimulated by the sound created by a blaster beam being used in the performance. This prompted Australian radio station
2SER-FM to conduct an experiment in which they played a continuous loop of a blaster beam performance and asked their female listeners to report any stimulation they experienced. (FM's
frequency response
In signal processing and electronics, the frequency response of a system is the quantitative measure of the magnitude and phase of the output as a function of input frequency. The frequency response is widely used in the design and analysis of s ...
typically starts at around 50 Hz which is similar to the theoretical lowest frequencies of the blaster beam, but these frequencies might have been more prominent at the live concert.) On this occasion none of the show's listeners reported any arousal whatsoever.
[filmcement.org (via archive.or]
Rummage Through The Crevices: The Blaster Beam: The Real Orgasmatron...?
by Warren, January 8, 2005
In 2016, composer
Bear McCreary
Bear McCreary (born February 17, 1979) is an American musician and composer of film, television, and video game scores based in Los Angeles, California. His work includes the scores of the television series ''Battlestar Galactica'' (2004), ''Age ...
featured the Blaster Beam in his score to ''
10 Cloverfield Lane
''10 Cloverfield Lane'' is a 2016 American science fiction psychological thriller film directed by Dan Trachtenberg in his directorial debut, produced by J. J. Abrams and Lindsey Weber and written by Josh Campbell, Matthew Stuecken, and Dami ...
'', performed by
Craig Huxley.
External links
blasterbeam.comInstrument history and description
References
{{Authority control
Electronic musical instruments