Noise Organ

The Noise Organ consists of an array of open tubes of different lengths. Each tube contains a tiny condenser microphone at the proximal end. The condenser mics are connected to a mixer circuit which allows the player to control the gain of each microphone. The mixer box has a pair of headphone jacks which allows the player and another listener or co-player to listen to the output of the tubes. The tubes are currently tuned to a chromatic scale, but one could tune them to any scale by swapping in different tubes.

The noise organ doesn't create any sound itself, it just shapes the sound around it. A rhythmic, non pitched sound, like a drum, traffic, or your own breathing can be given pitch and played. The sound can only be observed through headphones, or by recording the output, because the tubes will feed back if the output is played through speakers. The player is isolated by the headphones, but at the same time he or she is forced to interact with the ambient sound that often goes unnoticed.