Fans of the galaxy far, far away never want to know the odds, but we can always use a good calculator. That way we can figure out just how much interest we owe Jabba the Hutt, and how much a new fleet of clone soldiers will cost the Republic. And we can also count on them if we want to hear the Star Wars‘ theme song, because it turns out they can even be turned into an instrument.
This unusual performance we first saw at LaughingSquid was shared by the YouTube channel It’s a small world, home to one of the best (only?) calculator musicians around. It features a brief snippet of “The Imperial March” and a rousing mechanical rendition of the 20th Century Fox introductory logo song. But the big performance is a version of the Star Wars main theme played on five calculators configured like a mathematician’s strange idea of a keyboard.
How is that a thing someone can do? I couldn’t even figure out how to use my TI-89 to find the right slope, let alone use it to play a song. Although watching this we do get the shivers thinking about an alternate universe where George Lucas still owns the rights to Star Wars and he includes a new “calculator player” in the Max Rebo Band in the next special edition.
That would not be music to our ears.
What other iconic movie theme song would you like to hear played with calculators? We’re counting on you to give us your best suggestions in our comments section below.
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Featured Image: It’s a small world