Secret of Joe’s singing guitar
QUESTION Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh uses a device that looks like a plastic hose that he puts in his mouth when he sings to change the sound of his voice. What is it?
JOE Walsh and many other guitarists/vocalists use a device called a talk box to add an additional effect to the sound of their guitar.
The hose is connected to a metal box at the musician’s feet. The box contains a small loudspeaker that receives a signal from the guitar or amplifier.
The sound from the small speaker travels up the plastic tube and into the vocalist’s mouth.
The singer then ‘voices’ or mimics the sound of the guitar with their tongue. It is, in effect, a method of humanising the sound of the guitar.
This system is no longer widely used. Digital electronics have been developed to produce similar effects more easily and comfortably for the performer. Wallace ‘Ears’ Aitchison (retired sound engineer), Truro, Cornwall. THE device used by Joe Walsh, notably on his 1973 track Rocky Mountain Way, is the Heil Talk Box. It was invented by US sound engineer Bob Heil.
Though Walsh was the first talk box user, it was Peter Frampton’s Frampton Comes Alive tour and album that made the device famous. The concept goes back to 1939 when jazz guitarist Alvino Rey used a carbon throat microphone wired to modulate his electric steel guitar sound. The novelsounding combination was called Singing Guitar.
US steel guitar players Pete Drake and Red Rhodes used an early talk box. The device featured on the track Silver Bells from a 1965 Christmas LP by US instrumental group The Ventures. The Heil Talk Box is now manufactured by the American music company Dunlop. George Geddes, Glasgow.
QUESTION If I had to travel around the M25, how many miles would I save driving on the inside lane anti-clockwise rather than going clockwise?
THE M25 in Greater London varies between three and four lanes, each of which is approximately four yards wide. The central reservation width varies, but for the purposes of calculating the differ- ence in travelling the full circuit of this motorway, it would be a fair approximation to take it as equal to one extra lane.
Therefore, the distance from the middle of the inside lane (clockwise) to the middle of the inside lane (anticlockwise) is six x four yards on a three-lane motorway or eight x four yards on a four-lane motorway. An average for the M25 as a whole would be seven x four yards, which is 28 yards. Thus, if the anticlockwise inside lane were a perfect circle with radius R, the clockwise inside lane would have the radius R + 28 yards.
Its circumference would be longer by an amount equal to 2pi x 28 yards, that is 176 yards or 200 yards as a round figure.
The M25 is not a perfect circle, but in the course of one complete circuit going clockwise, the total amount of right-hand turning will exceed the total left-hand turning by exactly 360 degrees. Hence, the anticlockwise circuit will be shorter than the clockwise circuit by the same amount, roughly 200 yards, regardless of the shape or length of the motorway. John Horsler, Berkhamsted, Herts. QUESTION What is the history behind the New York Stock Exchange’s closing bell? FURTHER to the earlier answer, the ringing of the New York Stock Exchange bell has become an institution since US president Ronald Reagan asked to do it in the mid-1980s.
A host of famous people have rung it, including baseball player Joe DiMaggio, golfer Phil Mickelson, Olympic swimming champion Michael Phelps, Spanish footballer David Villa, actors Sylvester Stallone, Chris Pratt and Robert Downey Jr, and world leaders including Nelson Mandela.
Some of the stranger ringers include Darth Vader, Ronald McDonald, Gidget the Taco Bell chihuahua and the cast of superhero film The Toxic Avenger. Ian Powers, Scarborough, N. Yorks.
QUESTION Before going to bed, I weighed 13st 10lb; in the morning, I weighed 13st 7lb 4oz. How is this possible?
WEIGHT fluctuation at night is due to water loss through respiration (breathing) or transpiration (sweating).
Water is heavy, with a pint weighing just over 1lb. Depending on factors such as house temperature and body mass, you can lose 1lb to 1.5lb (a pint or more) through water loss in a night.
In addition, 4oz to 5oz will be lost through sleep metabolism. Calories are burned while sleeping to sustain the heart, lungs, brain and other organs.
A sleeping woman burns 500 calories in a week’s sleep, while a man burns 725 calories.
While this, in itself, does not equate to weight loss, chemical bonds are broken, a process that releases heat and fuel to power the organs.
Ultimately, most of this is exhaled as carbon dioxide.
A small amount of carbon is lost with each breath (0.0004oz) when breathing in oxygen and then breathing out carbon dioxide, which is a heavier molecule. Martin Simms, Liverpool.
QUESTION Why has Sinéad O’Connor chosen to call herself Magda Davitt? Is there a significance to the new moniker?
SINÉAD O’Connor has changed her first name twice, first in 2017, then again in 2018. The moves coincided with her change of religion, when she adopted the Islamic faith. She had been ordained as a priest in 1999 by the Irish Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church, which isn’t affiliated to the Catholic Church. In 2018, she announced on Twitter that her conversion to Islam was the natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian’s journey.
She first changed her name in 2017, when she declared she was now called Magda Davitt, saying that she wanted to be free of the patriarchal slave names. It’s widely considered that the new surname she chose for herself, Davitt, was inspired by Michael Davitt, who founded the Land League. In October, 2018, she changed her first name again, to Shuhada’, reflecting her conversion to Islam, but retained her surname, so that the singer is now known as Shuhada’ Davitt. John Murphy, Cork.