TED Sparks Organic Synthesis

The 2009 TED conference took place last week, replete with its usual barrage of genius, innovation and insight. There were also a few musical angles thrown into the mix for good measure…

Chasing TED

Derek Sivers was at this year’s conference, and you can read his first impressions of the opening night on his blog. If you have no idea what TED is, then you should visit the site and watch a few videos – this is where you can observe some of the brightest minds in the world discussing ideas and technologies that may actually be vital for the development of humanity.

Natural Vocal Synthesis

One of the highlights of the opening night was (apparently) the performance by Naturally 7, a vocal-only act who imitate a variety of instruments with their voices – effectively taking the human beatbox to the next level.

When I first heard about the concept of a group of singers using their voices to imitate instruments, I thought that they were using some form of additive synthesis – each member adding a new waveform to the mix until the instrument’s sound emerged.

I’m not sure if they do also work in this way, but this a capella video of them performing in the Paris subway is certainly entertaining…