Tesla Coils Instead of Speakers

Last night I saw this concert performed here on the UIUC campus. Two Tesla coils were set up and connected to a continuous note keyboard called a continuum. The Tesla coil on the left was filtered for higher frequency signal while the coil on the left was filtered for lower frequency signals that came from the continuum keyboard. The Tesla coils then generated these lightening bolts at the frequency of the electronic signal generated by the continuum keyboard so that the net result was lightening that created the sound of and was synced to the music. Essentially, these two Tesla coils replaced speakers. As air becomes ionized in a lightening strike it heats and expands rapidly, this pressure disturbance leads to the sound of thunder. If you could control the pitch of that sound with an electrical signal then you could play music with lightening, and thats exactly what they did last night. It was pretty wicked, like something from the distant future. Here's a picture of the musician before he started playing the continuum:


If you liked that video, I found another one on youtube from a show they put on without the continuum keyboard. It has some more recognizable tunes in it. Click here to check that one out.