Since I was making so many drawings based on sound and tempo, time and vibration I thought it would be fun to make some unruly instruments. These are all built from beginners enthusiasm and I intend to work on engineering some bridges and pegs and contact mic attachments, though each instrument is different so they will all have to be customized.
No specific system of octaves is recognized here. Every time a new person plays one a different touch brings new frictions and pressures. It’s never exactly the same. In the same way that I am uninterested in making visual compositions that relate to appropriate proportions or some arbitary order that is pleasing or simple to humans because it seems untrue to experience, I am not really interested in making something conforming to a measure.
Anyway, meet the band…..
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business.
Waterphone, welded steel and water, 10” x 10” x 36”
Slowly, very slowly rusting. (You can’t weld stainless steel without releasing toxic gases.)
Artist Kun Kyung Sok plays the waterphone
Harpies
Branches collected from Prospect Park are rigged with guitar and banjo strings between the natural divisions of the branches. The strength of the branches, the amount of tension they can tolerate and width of the fork determine possible range of pitches available. When fitted with a small contact mic the entire branch can be played as any contact will reverberate through the length of the branch.
I’ll be working on different plans for resonators and simple customized bridges that hold the strings more firmly than the current indepenent zither pegs.
Jam night with friends. More audio to come
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business.
Bells
Barbecue pit fired porcelain bells.
La Prima Storia
A ritual for compositions based on resting heartbeats
