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Music

Stop Doing Real Things, This Webpage Let's You Turn Boring Words into Kinda Cool Beats

You're about to discover that your name sounds like an Evian Christ remix of the Seinfeld theme tune.

Stop everything you were pretending to do: someone has made a fun thing on the internet that you need to play with immediately. It’s called Typedrummer and it’s a simple webpage that turns your keyboard into a cross between a typewriter and a drum machine, therefore turning you into a cross between D. H Lawrence and DJ Mustard.

On Typedrummer, every letter, number and symbol on your keyboard becomes a percussive or electronic sound, so you just start typing words in there and the webpage spits out surprisingly coherent beats based on your choices. For instance, you can turn your name into a beat, which is obviously the first thing anyone does when using this. You can do that here, but then come back because I'm not finished.

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Have fun typing profanities like "shit" and "piss" and "Chad Kroeger" into it just then, did you? Hell, why not chuck entire articles in there. Getting a bit bored halfway through a Guardian thinkpiece about the Tory party’s relationship with trade unions? Fuck it. Paste the entire thing into Typedrummer and it sounds like Evian Christ doing the Seinfeld theme tune. Much more palatable.

After ten minutes of this you're probably thinking: What's the point? And I hear you. But Typedrummer isn't just for turning words into beats. Get used to the allocation of each key and you can start to make some some pretty satisfying loops, satisfying enough for you momentarily entertain the seductive and naive thought of "hey, maybe I AM musical?" Even though the only thing you ever managed to play on guitar was "Smoke on the Water" and the Ableton crack on your desktop remains decidedly unzipped. So, I suppose Typedrummer, in a way, is a Better, More Creative You Simulator. Here's one user's particularly gifted attempt to cover "Brass Monkey" by the Beastie Boys. Medal for that person.

The app was made by a web developer from Pennsylvania called Kyle Stetz, and it's in it's early stages, so if you find any bugs or problems with it just, like, dont be a dick about it, okay? If it works fine for you then, welcome, you've found the most perfect office time waster ever created. As far as everyone around you is concerned, you’re typing away furiously, like some sort of Red Bull-fuelled employee of the month. But, in reality, you’re turning quotes from The Simpsons into fragmented UK garage stonkers.

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