Composer Uses Kid’s Science Kit and an Old Bicycle Wheel to Make a Spinning Music Sequencer

Composer David Hilowitz, who previously built a unique violin with a broken spring reverb tank from an old Fender, used a kid’s science kit with adorable cat-eared headphones along with some tin foil to make a spinning music sequencer from an old bicycle wheel.

In this video, I combine a children’s science kit with a bicycle wheel, resulting in a makeshift music sequencer.

After creating several notes with this using the jacks of the kit and homemade sensors with aluminum foil, Hilowitz figured out how to change the arrangement in order to create a short song that repeated as the wheel spun.

 So that’s really cool but let’s try changing the sequence a bit. Of course if we want the notes to play at different times …since each jack corresponds to a different note we can just change which cable is plugged into which jack and get a completely different sequence, of course, with the same rhythm.

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.