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 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 periodic waveform (usually sinusoidal) that conveys information through a process called ''modulation''. One or more of the wave's properties, such as amplitude or freq ...

; 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 List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and W ...

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 South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

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" 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. 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 A microcontroller (MC, uC, or μC) or microcontroller unit (MCU) is a small computer on a single integrated circuit. A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs (processor cores) along with memory and programmable input/output peripherals. Pro ...

that is programmed to interpret

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

data, and output a corresponding

Pulse-width modulation Pulse-width modulation (PWM), also known as pulse-duration modulation (PDM) or pulse-length modulation (PLM), is any method of representing a signal as a rectangular wave with a varying duty cycle (and for some methods also a varying peri ...

(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 science fiction convention, convention held every May or June in the Chicago area between 1992 and 2014. The name is a shortening of DuPage County, Illinois, DUpage County KONvention. DucKon served as a fu ...

16, a science fiction convention in

Naperville Naperville ( ) is a city in DuPage and Will counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. It is a southwestern suburb of Chicago located west of the city on the DuPage River. As of the 2020 census, its population was 149,540, making it the state's ...

, Illinois. The performance was b
Steve Ward
an

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

student at the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...

, 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 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, 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 musical instrument in the tuba family. Created around 1893 by J.W. Pepper & Son, J. W. Pepper at the direction of American bandleader John Philip Sousa (after whom the instrument was then named), it was design ...

, giving homage instead to

Zeus Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the child ...

, 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 "Thoramin" 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 aft ...

" incorporating the name of

Thor Thor (from ) is a prominent list of thunder gods, god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding æsir, god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology, sacred g ...

, the god of thunder in

Norse mythology Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology, is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia as the Nordic folklore of the modern period. The ...

In popular culture

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

The Sorcerer's Apprentice "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" () 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 his apprentice with chores to perform. Tired of ...

''. A singing Tesla coil was used in

Björk Björk Guðmundsdóttir ( , ; born 21 November 1965), known mononymously as Björk, is an Icelandic singer, songwriter, composer, record producer, and actress. Noted for her distinct voice, three-octave vocal range, and eccentric public per ...

'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 a Filipino American turntablist and composer who has heavily influenced the History of DJing. He was awarded America's Best DJ in 2010, was DMC USA Champio ...

used a turntable for

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

a Tesla coil built by CamDAX (Cameron Mira) at the 2015

Maker Faire Maker Faire is a convention of do it yourself (DIY) enthusiasts established by '' Make'' magazine in 2006. Participants come from a wide variety of interests, such as robotics, 3D printing, computers, arts and crafts, and hacker culture. Hist ...

near San Francisco The song "Tesla Theme" in

Flux Pavilion Joshua Kiekegaard Grant Steele (born 15 January 1989), known professionally as Flux Pavilion, is an English EDM producer, DJ, singer-songwriter and label owner. He started performing in 2008. Flux Pavilion has headlined three US tours, two UK ...

'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 (producer), Paul O'Neill, who brought together Jon Oliva and Al Pitrelli (both members of Savatage) and keyboardist and co-pr ...

used two singing Tesla coils during the 2019 "

Christmas Eve and Other Stories ''Christmas Eve and Other Stories'' is the debut studio album by American symphonic metal band Trans-Siberian Orchestra. It was released on October 15, 1996, through Lava Records and Atlantic Records. It is the first album in the band's "Christm ...

" 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