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Music

Meet the World's Most Dangerous Instrument: The Tesla Coil

It features enough electric current to stop the heart of someone using it.

Usually, the most dangerous thing about performing with a musical instrument is the chance that a guitar string will stick you in the eye or, more likely, your bandmate will accidentally smash you in the face with a headstock. However there is one instrument that's inherently incredibly dangerous and it's called The Tesla Coil.

The Tesla Coil was invented by Nikola Tesla in the late 19th century and features enough electric current to stop the heart of someone using it. Although this electrical resonant transformer was originally designed to produce electricity, the coils can also be used to create music via the high-voltage sparks they create. If you don't believe us, you can see and hear below as two coils perform—maybe somewhat predictably—the theme to Super Mario Brothers.

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However, video game enthusiasts aren't the only ones using the Tesla coil to create music and through MIDI controllers. In fact, these days, savvy (and brave) enthusiasts are able to manipulate the signal to create music that's been featured in everything from the Disney film The Sorcerer's Apprentice to the Björk song "Thunderbolt" from her 2011 album Biophilia. Unfortunately, the mere audio of this device really doesn't do its grandeur (or danger) justice.

As you may have expected, unless you live somewhere incredibly fucked up, you're not going to just roll into your local guitar shop and pick up a Tesla Coil. We tried. Your best bet is building your own and one site we found with instructions on how to do that it warned, "Unlike some other high voltage experiments, a Tesla coil's streamers can be very harmful. If you are shocked by the streamers, you will not feel pain, but your circulatory and nervous system can sustain severe damage. DO NOT TOUCH IT WHILE ON UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES."

Yikes. The good news is that, like making meth, it isn't terribly expensive to construct a medium-sized version of the coil using household products if you're scientifically savvy and adventurous. Just be aware of the dangers of the coils as well as the defining volume of the noise they can produce. All of that aside, we can't think of anything heavier than playing a metal song via Tesla Coils; just check out this cover of Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" by ArcAttack if you don't believe us.

Seriously though, don't try this at home. Do you really want to take the chance that you'll end up more fried than Ozzy Osbourne as a possible side-effect? We didn't think so.

Jonah Bayer is working on building is own Tesla Coil for a time travel-related band… He can't really talk about it right now. Follow him on Twitter - @mynameisjonah