Geophone (musical instrument) Geophone (musical instrument) The geophone is a percussion instrument, invented by the French composer Olivier Messiaen for use in his large composition for piano and orchestra entitled "Des canyons aux étoiles…" ("From the canyons to the stars…"). It consists of a drum filled with thousands of small lead pellets, and is played by swirling it around slowly so that the noise of the pellets resembles the sound of dry shifting earth. Messiaen commissioned a Parisian instrument maker to construct one to his design, and he carried this instrument worldwide to early performances of the piece (which was given its first
Faye Flam Faye Flam Faye Flam (born c. 1964) is an American journalist. She has written for "Science Magazine" and wrote two weekly columns for "The Philadelphia Inquirer", including one on sex and one on evolution. Flam wrote a book on the influence of sex on human evolution and society. She teaches science writing and lectures on communication to scientific forums, and is a journalism critic for the MIT Knight Science Journalism Tracker. Flam chose a top-ten ranked American university to pursue her interest in science and engineering, attending the California Institute of Technology, where she earned a B.Sc. degree in Geophysics