The cool thing about music is that you can use just about anything to play it… as long as you have talent, of course. And that’s exactly what Franzoli Electronics is doing, as he posted a video on YouTube in which he plays Toto’s famous hit Africa using Tesla coils…
Africa by Toto played on Tesla coils
So I won't hide from you that watching this video was an opportunity for me to discover what a Tesla coil was. I know you all know this machine invented in 1981 by Nikola Tesla and regularly improved since then, but I'll give you a brief definition anyway. Basically, a Tesla coil is a device that produces electric arcs in the air (a kind of lightning) by reaching very high voltages.
But suddenly these electric arcs produce a sound when they are triggered. And it is by playing with this sound that Franzoli Electronics managed to reproduce Toto's piece fairly faithfully. Here is also how he explains how it works of his “instrument”:
The main music actually comes from the Tesla coil sparks. They literally play the music because of the phase, signal width and firing frequency that are programmed! So there are no speakers, no audio/video special effects.
Not bad, huh? A really good cover of Toto's Africa...
The good news is that if you're a fan of the genre, you can find more Tesla coil covers on the YouTube page of Franzoli Electronics !
Otherwise you can also listen to the song Take on Me by Aha played on a clothes dryer...
