The singing Tesla coil, sometimes called a zeusaphone, thoramin or musical lightning, is a form of

plasma speaker Plasma speakers or ionophones are a form of loudspeaker which varies air pressure via an electrical plasma instead of a solid diaphragm. The plasma arc heats the surrounding air causing it to expand. Varying the electrical signal that drives t ...

. It is a variety of a solid state

Tesla coil A Tesla coil is an electrical resonant transformer circuit designed by inventor Nikola Tesla in 1891. It is used to produce high-voltage, low- current, high-frequency alternating-current electricity. Tesla experimented with a number of differen ...

that has been modified to produce musical tones by modulating its spark output. The resulting pitch is a low fidelity square wave like sound reminiscent of an analog synthesizer. The high-frequency signal acts in effect as a

carrier wave In telecommunications, a carrier wave, carrier signal, or just carrier, is a waveform (usually sinusoidal) that is modulated (modified) with an information-bearing signal for the purpose of conveying information. This carrier wave usually has ...

; its frequency is significantly above human-audible sound frequencies, so that digital modulation can reproduce a recognizable pitch. The musical tone results directly from the passage of the spark through the air. Because solid-state coil drivers are limited to "on-off" modulation, the sound produced consists of square-like waveforms rather than sinusoidal (though simple chords are possible). The term "singing Tesla coil" was coined by David Nunez, the coordinator of the

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

chapter of

Dorkbot Dorkbot is a group of affiliated organizations worldwide that sponsor grassroots meetings of artists, engineers, designers, scientists, inventors, and anyone else working under the very broad umbrella of electronic art. The dorkbot motto is "peop ...

, while describing a musical Tesla coil presentation by Joe DiPrima and Oliver Greaves during DorkBot's 2007 SXSW event. The term was then made popular by a CNET article describing the event. They had been doing public performances with the technology since March 2006. Shortly after that, DiPrima named their performance group "

ArcAttack ArcAttack is a performance art group that specializes in playing music through a combination of homemade, high-tech instruments, and more traditional instruments such as guitar and bass. Background The main attraction of their performance is the ...

" and became the first musical group to ever use this technology in live performance. Early versions of musical Tesla coils generally used zero crossing threshold detectors as a method of producing music through their spark output, an example of this circuit was released by ctc-labs.de in 2009. Scott Coppersmith was the first person to design a complete MIDI-based Tesla coil system. MIDI is the most common method of music production. It works by means of a microcontroller that is programmed to interpret

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and ...

data, and output a corresponding Pulse-width modulation (PWM) signal. This PWM signal is coupled to the Tesla coil through a fiber optic cable, and controls when the Tesla coil turns on and off.

Zeusaphone

The name zeusaphone was coined after a public demonstration of the device on June 9, 2007 at

DucKon DucKon was an annual science fiction convention held every May or June in the Chicago area between 1992 and 2014. The name is a shortening of DUpage County KONvention. DucKon served as a fundraiser for Super-Con-Duck-Tivity, a non-profit org ...

16, a science fiction convention in

Naperville Naperville ( ) is a city in DuPage County, Illinois, DuPage and Will County, Illinois, Will counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. It is in the Chicago metro area, west of the city. Naperville was founded in 1831 by Joseph Naper. The city was ...

, Illinois. The performance was b
Steve Ward
an electrical engineering student at the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...

, who designed and built the Tesla coil he used. Subsequent performances include
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies
" performed on September 8, 2007, at the 2007 "Cheesehead Teslathon," a.k.a. "Lightning on the Lawn," in

Baraboo Baraboo is a city in the Midwest and the county seat of Sauk County, Wisconsin, United States. The largest city in the county, Baraboo is the principal city of the Baraboo Micropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2020 population was 12,556. It is situ ...

WI, by Ward and fellow designe
Jeff Larson
on matching 41 kHz Tesla coils. The term "zeusaphone" was conceived b
Dr. Barry Gehm
of

Lyon College , mottoeng = Perseverance Conquers All, God Willing. , established = , type = Private college , president = Melissa Taverner , city = Batesville , state = Arkansas , country = United States , students = 665 , faculty = 61 , campus = Rural town ...

, on June 19, 2007, in a conversation with his frien
Bill Higgins
It is a play on the name of the

sousaphone The sousaphone ( ) is a brass instrument in the tuba family. Created around 1893 by J. W. Pepper at the direction of American bandleader John Philip Sousa (after whom the instrument was then named), it was designed to be easier to play than ...

, giving homage instead to

Zeus Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label= genitive Boeotian Aeolic and Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label= genitive el, Δίας, ''Días'' () is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek reli ...

, ancient Greek god of lightning. The name was adopted by Ward on June 21, 2007.E-mail from Bill Higgins to the GT-PFRC discussion list, June 21, 2007.Higgins, William S., "Zeusaphone: The Origin of the Word," October 19, 2007. The alternative name "Thoremin" was suggested by Dan Butler-Ehle; it is a wordplay on "

theremin The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone/etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named afte ...

" incorporating the name of

Thor Thor (; from non, Þórr ) is a prominent god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred groves and trees, strength, the protection of humankind, hallowing, an ...

, the

god of thunder Polytheistic peoples from many cultures have postulated a thunder god, the personification or source of the forces of thunder and lightning; a lightning god does not have a typical depiction, and will vary based on the culture. In Indo-European c ...

in Norse mythology.

In popular culture

Singing Tesla coils were featured in Walt Disney's 2010 film ''

The Sorcerer's Apprentice "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (german: "Der Zauberlehrling", link=no, italic=no) is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe written in 1797. The poem is a ballad in 14 stanzas. Story The poem begins as an old sorcerer departs his workshop, leaving ...

''. A singing Tesla coil was used in Björk's 2011 performance piece '' Biophilia'', during a song called "Thunderbolt".

DJ QBert Richard Quitevis (born October 7, 1969) known by his stage name DJ Qbert or Qbert, is an American turntablist and composer. He was awarded America's Best DJ in 2010, was DMC USA Champion 1991 (solo) and achieved titles as DMC World Champion in ...

used a turntable for

scratching Scratching, sometimes referred to as scrubbing, is a DJ and turntablist technique of moving a vinyl record back and forth on a turntable to produce percussive or rhythmic sounds. A crossfader on a DJ mixer may be used to fade between two record ...

a Tesla coil built by CamDAX (Cameron Mira) at the 2015 Maker Faire near San Francisco The song "Tesla Theme" in

Flux Pavilion Joshua Steele (born 15 January 1989) better known by his stage name Flux Pavilion, is an English EDM producer, DJ, singer-songwriter and label owner who has been performing since 2008. Flux Pavilion has headlined three US tours, two UK tours, ...

's album Tesla features singing Tesla coils. Progressive metal band

Trans-Siberian Orchestra Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO) is an American rock band founded in 1996 by producer, composer, and lyricist Paul O'Neill, who brought together Jon Oliva and Al Pitrelli (both members of Savatage) and keyboardist and co-producer Robert Kinkel ...

used two singing Tesla coils during the 2019 "

Christmas Eve And Other Stories Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, i ...

" tour. The Tesla coils were used during the performances of "The Storm/The Mountain", "Requiem (The Fifth)", and the encore reprise of "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24"

Notes

External links

Video of Steve Ward's public demonstration at Duckon 2007Webpage for ArcAttack!Video of a Singing Tesla CoilVideo of DJ QBert and CamDAX performance at Bay Area Maker Faire 2015Rick Astley's, Never Gonna Give You Up, played on singing tesla coils.
{{Experimental musical instruments Electromagnetic coils Electronic musical instruments Plasmaphones Articles containing video clips