Worms Making Music

[PHY]

A solo worm performing a thoughtful little number. No worms were hurt.

Following a gruelling audition process, one solo worm was hand selected to perform its own music, without proviso, upon a specially adapted and destabilised FM synthesis circuit disembowelled from a Yamaha PSS-470. For one day, this worm was treated like royalty; whisked around London's swankiest mud spas and hermaphrodite clubs, before spending an evening at the very best hotel (whatever it's called, I dunno). Ah, what a star...

As for the machinations behind the pizzazz; a Yamaha FM synthesis board is sensitivised by overclocking it with a painfully high quartz crystal (17 Mhz), various components have either been removed or replaced, and the entire circuit hard wired to run on the lowest possible current/voltage (to avoid the worm getting hurt). The worm was safely returned to its natural habitat.

Incidentally, this video was submitted to (and rejected by) the Annual Slug & Worm Conference. They did not like worm music one bit.

If you liked this worm music however, more can be seen at the 6th Annual 'Noise!' Festival in Canada this year. A treat for the senses perhaps? More info:
http://noise.industrial.org/

Edit: Just a quick disclaimer... Again, I swear that the worm was not hurt! Please don't worry. The circuit was adapted to run on a very low current. The spasms are just involuntary reactions.

EDIT 2 : Due to some concern for the worm's welfare, I state again that this circuit is ADAPTED to be as gentle on the worm as possible! It is an experimental way of creating aleatory music - with the worm's health being MOST IMPORTANT. The 'safe' worm current was basically calculated by scaling human resistance against an ampage that constitutes a painful shock, applying this to the worm's own resistance and developing a circuit that runs BELOW the resultant current. I tested the circuit on my tongue countless times to fine tune the voltage/current ratio, which is the closest thing on the human body that approximates the worm's resistance and nerve agglomeration.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb4jOCAr8ow[/youtube]