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Musical calculators! Japanese Twitter user recreates songs beautifully by crunching numbers【Vids】

Scott Wilson Sep 4, 2017
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The perfect way to get your math teacher to hate you.

We’ve seen before that amazing music can be found in the unlikeliest of places, like Pokémon and Final Fantasy themes being played on xylophones as large as a room.

But now Japanese math musician (?) @zk_oj has turned one of the least likeliest items of all into a musical instrument: a calculator.

▼ “I played Tokyo Disneyland’s Electrical Parade on two calculators.”

東京エレクトリカルパレードを電卓二台で弾いてみた#弾いてみた #disney pic.twitter.com/fqacTELWpm

— me (@zk_oj) August 27, 2017

▼ If you’ve never heard the original song before, you can take a listen here.
(Skip to 0:52 for the meat of the song to start.)

First of all, that is an incredible rendition of the song, considering it’s being played on a calculator of all things. Second, holy crap is @zk_oj talented! Not only did they map the song to the calculator sounds, and not only did they memorize the buttons, but they did it across two calculators at the same time! It’s truly the ultimate party trick.

For those curious, the calculator is the Chinese-made “Dragon Night AR7778.” If you want to start practicing to impress your friends, it’s available for sale on Amazon Japan. Even if your mathematically-musical career doesn’t pan out, it’s still a perfect way to annoy the rest of your math class.

▼ @zk_oj also posted a video playing the
Kemono Friends theme song on three calculators!

電卓三台で【けものフレンズOPようこそジャパリパークへ】を演奏してみた

youtube→https://t.co/HFzeO8IDVp

ニコニコ動画→https://t.co/iyDKCgTkvV #けものフレンズ #kemono_friends #弾いてみた pic.twitter.com/THLqM1KWS6

— me (@zk_oj) August 28, 2017

Here’s how Japanese Twitter reacted to this display of musical prowess:

“Are you some sort of mathemagician?”
“I had no idea calculators could play music….”
“The electronic sounds the buttons make are perfect!”
“All I usually get when I press the buttons is a dull ‘click’ sound.”
“I want to hear more!”

Well then you’re in luck, netizen, because @zk_oj has uploaded musical renditions of other songs to their YouTube channel.

▼ Here we have Despacito played on two calculators,
because of course that has to be the next song.

Unfortunately @zk_oj doesn’t have too many other videos uploaded at this time, but if calculator remixes are your thing, then there are apparently several others out there. Another Japanese YouTuber named Ryon has made similar videos on their channel.

▼ Here’s the theme to Pirates of the Caribbean…

▼ …My Neighbor Totoro…
(Skip to 0:38 for the part you really want.)

▼ …and, of course, Frozen’s Let it Go.
(Skip to 0:48 for that part.)

We’re not sure which is more impressive, @zk_oj playing on multiple calculators at once, or Ryon managing to do it all one handed. Either way, if you want more calculator jams in your life, you should follow them both on YouTube (@zk_oj’s channel, Ryon’s channel).

Now if we can just get them to drop a drum beat in their next video, we might have some really sweet RPG boss battle music in the making here.

Source: Twitter/@zk_oj via Togech
Featured image: Twitter/@zk_oj