Years ago I was in a gallery show with Mineko Grimmer, who makes sound sculptures of pebbles frozen in ice. As the ice melts, the pebbles drop into a pool or a wooden lattice and make irregular sounds.
I made my own version entirely out of things from my junk drawer: marbles, squashed pennies, old keys and dog tags, and some acorns I was saving in a tiny jar. What does it sound like? I won’t find out until the weather warms up.
This one didn’t really work out. It was supposed to be a sequel to last year’s automatic tension guitar, but it doesn’t work or sound nearly as good. I’m experimenting with cheap substitutes for the little clapper solenoids I used last year, which are now really hard to find, but so far the results are bad.
And it’s not even automatic! I didn’t get around to rigging up a computer interface, so I’m playing it with the funny little wooden keyboard you can see at the upper right. It sounds like this.
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Very very tiny. I clamped it in steel pliers so I could use a magnetic pickup to record the sound it made. Slowed down by a factor of eight (down three octaves), it sounds like this.
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I’m performing at Barbes in Park Slope, Brooklyn this Wednesday (March 4th) at 8pm. Come at 7 and mess around with homemade instruments – bring your own if you like! I’ll be joined by The Glass Bees.
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A drum, some antique wind-up motors (from the Aladdin Toy Motors company of Brooklyn!), and leftover wood from the laser whistles combine to give you a simulation of the sound of a peaceful sunday morning in New York City. It sounds like this. (Video here)
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Good old-fashioned circuit-bending with a baby-rattling device I found in the trash and slightly modified. Magnetic pickup and contact microphone pick up sound in two different ways.
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Spring, clamp, bamboo skewer, and piezo contact microphone. Finger pressure on the skewer changes the tone. It goes sproooooinnnnnnng!
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Fruit crate, found twigs, hardware, piezoelectric disc, sewing needle, hot glue, and "Walk This Way" by RUN-D.M.C.
I don’t have a record player, so it was time to make one out of whatever I had lying around. It sounds like this.
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Instrument-a-day month is two-thirds over and I’ve only fallen behind by one day! So far I’ve made squawkers, hissers, squeakers, plonkers, and various other noisemakers, all of which you can see at <http://www.moonmilk.com/>
And on Wednesday March 4th, 8pm, I’ll be performing with some of these and other homemade instruments at Barbes in Brooklyn — I’ll be joined by friends, probably including the Glass Bees <http://glassbees.com/> to buzz and sputter for the night. If you’re in the NYC area, please join us! Come an hour or two early and we’ll be doing an informal handmade instrument workshop. (Please me know if you think you’ll be coming.)
In early April, Nick and Aaron and I hope to unveil our sound sculpture for the lobby of the Coney Island Museum. If all goes well, the piece will continue to grow after the opening, as we add more and more mechanical instruments to it until it takes over most of the museum. More details next month! <http://www.coneyisland.com/museum.shtml>
As poet Elizabeth Alexander recited during the recent inaugural address:
Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.
A strong magnet distorts the sound of a music box by warping the tines. It’s recorded through a hand-wound magnetic pickup, and it sounds like this. (There’s no processing added to the sound except for noise reduction.)
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1/8" steel rod, found wood, hand-wound magnetic pickup, played through a cheap battery-powered amplifier for a bit of that KONONO N°1 sound. Inspired by the chimes made by Nathan Davis for Phyllis Chen (but not made with nearly as much skill or artistry). It’s played with drumsticks.
The steel chimes sound like this (warning: loud! but for best results you should turn it up even louder.)
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Another way to use up waste bamboo that was too split up for a wind instrument. Though a real shishi odoshi (deer scarer) would use good bamboo and make a much nicer sound. The sticks are gathered from the park; the pivot is steel rod through an aluminum tube (leftover from the slide guitar).
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