moonmilk

trumpet marine at figment festival

I made a little sound sculpture - a sort of wind-powered banjo - for this weekend’s Figment Festival on Governors Island. Here it is installed on the island’s waterfront by Castle Williams, with a spectacular view of downtown Manhattan. (If you’re in the New York area, come to the festival this weekend - it’s free, and there’s eight million things to see.)

If the wind really picks up, the flowers will spin.

And here’s a video from when I was testing it on my deck.

all my candy

installation proposal for artbots 2008 from ranjit on Vimeo.

Proposal for Artbots 2008

Simple automatic instruments are constructed from local materials and objects on site. The system learns the sounds it can make by trying out its instruments, and then uses its range of sounds to try to reproduce the rhythmic and melodic qualities of sounds such as the voices of visitors. It then loops and alters these imitative sequences into improvised compositions. (That last part’s not done yet, so you won’t see it in the video.)

In this example, the source audio is a bit of the soundtrack from the movie Citizen Kane, and the noisemakers are a set of found object percussion machines and an electromagnetically fretted electric guitar.

three noisy things coming soon

I’ve got three noisy things happening or starting soon:

Friday afternoon (April 4): instrument workshop/jam session at The Tank, NYC
Opening Friday (April 4): Everything Must Go — the last ever show at Flux Factory’s current space in Queens, soon to be flattened by the MTA.
Opening Saturday (April 5): Artistic Mediums: Revelations of the Invisible — at the Museum of New Art, Pontiac, MI

FIRST OFF, this Friday from 2-5pm at The Tank in Tribeca:

I’m doing an instrument-building workshop and jam session with the electronic noise band The Loud Objects. They’ll teach you to program cheap industrial microcontrollers into noisemakers of wonder; I’ll be showing how to wind your own electric guitar pickups and make simple but surprisingly great sounding electric stringed instruments. You’ll leave with one or more new instrument made by your own hands! (There’s an optional donation for supply costs.)

The Tank @ Collective: Unconscious is located at 279 Church Street between Franklin and White. To get to The Tank by subway take A, C, E, J, M, Z, N, Q, R, W, Z, or 6 to Canal Street, or 1 to Franklin Street.

LATER THAT SAME NIGHT: opening party 7pm at Flux Factory:

“Soon, very soon, the Flux Factory space at 38-38 43rd Street will be demolished. In anticipation of this event, we are turning the entirety of Flux Factory into a giant installation of itself. For the past six years, Flux Factory has developed its gallery and aesthetics laboratory at our space in Long Island City. We have had scores of shows and many hundreds of artists have graced these halls. Now it must all be destroyed. Our entire block will be razed by the pitiless bulldozers of the MTA. Everything Must Go.”

I’ll be making a sound sculpture for the show based on the recorded voices of flux factory artists, residents, and friends. I can’t give any details yet because I’m going to improvise the whole thing tomorrow night. Will it work!? Only one way for you to find
out! If that’s not enough, there will also be live music and booze.

It’s gonna be a big crazy show, check it out. If you can’t make it to the opening, the show will be open weekends (and other times - check the web site) until the CLOSING PARTY on Saturday, April 26.

Flux Factory is in Long Island city near the N, R, V, G, and 7 trains. …directions

AND THEN ON SATURDAY IN THE MIDWEST…
Opening party 6-9 pm at the Museum of New Art, Pontiac, MI. The show is called Artistic Mediums: Revelations of the Invisible:

“Thomas Edison, the son of Spiritualists, proposed a telephone to call the dead. Contemporary post humanists seek to convert their souls into bits, or at least to prove that the meat is simply a container. Paranormal researchers, in particular those interested in EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena), argue that the electromagnetic spectrum is oft manipulated by the dead to communicate with the living - that intelligences live invisibly in the ether is a foregone conclusion.”

My piece for the show is a sound sculpture made of various junk and collaged audio, called “Sonnets from the Portugese.” Unfortunately I won’t make it to the opening, but if you happen to be near Pontiac, here’s directions to the gallery. The show will be up
until April 26th.

I’ll put documentation of all three of these noisy things up on this site after the weekend.

pix and sounds from 29 noisy noises

Thanks to everyone who came to the 29 Noisy Noises party on March 1 and helped me celebrate finishing 29 instruments in 29 days! Lots of great people came over and made a lot of great noise on the 29 instruments — you can hear some of it below.

Photo by Andrew Sempere - more party photos from Andrew - more from me

electric jam Download audio file (01-electric%20jam.mp3)
“set up a groove” Download audio file (02-set%20up%20a%20groove.mp3)

Photo by Andrew Sempere

coconut & foot Download audio file (03-coconut%20and%20foot.mp3)
your branca is leaking Download audio file (04-your%20branca%20is%20leaking.mp3)

konono no. 0 Download audio file (05-konono%20no.%200.mp3)
bang on a can Download audio file (06-bang%20on%20a%20can.mp3)

coney island band organ rally!

This Sunday 3/16, noon to 4:30pm, the Coney Island Museum celebrates automatic music - organ grinders, player pianos, and more - at the Band Organ Rally. I’m building a brand new automatic instrument for the event, and bringing some older ones too. Sneak previews below.

something new

something old

thing 29: dog

It’s a dog. Eating from a metal bowl and then fighting with the blankets, he sounds like this.
Download audio file (dog.mp3)

If you’re in NYC and you’d like to meet this or other instruments-of-the-day, check this out.

I’m going to continue with the instrument building, one a week for as long as I can stand it. If you wanna keep up with the noise, bookmark or subscribe to my homepage. Thanks for putting up with the cacophony!

29 noisy noises: celebrate homemade instruments tomorrow!

Gonna have a party on Saturday March 1st to celebrate surviving the building of 29 instruments in 29 days! It’ll be 3-6pm (or so) in Long Island City, Queens, NYC - contact me for more info. There’ll be beer and snax and making noises. Bring your own noisemakers and/or ideas for noisemakers.

I’m going to continue with the instrument-building, making one every week forever. Or until I get tired of it. They’ll all be posted here.

thing 28: rotten stick box fiddle

I found the box in the garbage while walking the dog yesterday and I knew I had to make a fiddle. It looks like it was a chunk cut out of a cheap veneer door or something. This was my most ambitious instrument-a-day, coming in at 6 hours.

The bridge is cut from poplar, the strings are nylon guitar strings, the bass bar and sound post are garbage wood, and the neck/fingerboard is, of course, a rotten stick. This fiddle actually leaves mildew on your left hand when you play it.

The bow I made yesterday literally disintegrated overnight - the screws unscrewed themselves and the hairs fell out! So I played the fiddle with a rosin-coated popsicle stick. Bear in mind that (1) this is a horrible, horrible fiddle and (2) i have no idea how to play a fiddle, before you listen to the sound sample.
Download audio file (boxfiddle.mp3)

thing 27: awful horsehair bow

Today my ebay order of mongolian horse hair arrived! So I made a fancy horsehair bow. It’s an awful bow, of course, and I have no idea how to use a bow anyway, but what the heck: here’s what it sounds like on the rotten stick tension guitar and the rotten stick electric guitar.
Download audio file (horsehairbow.mp3)

(I got to spend some time combing horse hair. Instrument making has more in common with My Little Pony than I knew!)

thing 26: rotten stick saxamophone

Yes, it’s another rotten stick! But no walnuts this time. It’s a saxophone of sorts, using reeds made out of coke cans, subway passes, and whatever else I had lying around. Here’s what it sounds like with three different reeds.
Download audio file (saxamophone.mp3)

Construction details: I cut the stick in half the long way and chiseled out a rectangular trench in one half. I clamped the two halves together while I made the mouthpiece (which is coated with lemon oil and olive oil to protect it from spit) and tested the first reed. Then I glued the halves together and drilled the finger holes, and made a bunch more reeds.

(mouthpiece)

(reeds)

thing 25: oak box boo

Bart Hopkin calls it a boo - a tongue drum made from a tube of bamboo or a box. It might not seem complicated compared to some of my earlier instruments, but for me, cutting and attaching these five pieces of wood was like brain surgery. Notice that no two sides are the same length, and the notches for the tongue are all slanted. Anyway, it goes a little bit like this.
Download audio file (oakboxboo.mp3)

thing 24: trumpet saline

Ever since I saw it in the instrument collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I’ve been obsessed with the trumpet marine, a giant one-stringed instrument that’s supposed to sound like a trumpet. Besides its monstrous size, the most important characteristics of the trumpet marine are that it’s fingered at the harmonics and played with a bow (like Glendon’s harmonic violin) and that it has a buzzing bridge that gives it the brassy sound of a trumpet. The bridge has to be carefully balanced to get it to buzz, which is done by adjusting the tension on a string called the guidon that tugs the main string sideways. (You can see the guidon in the closeup shot.)

My instrument with no bow at all is a pretty poor imitation of a trumpet marine, but it does sound a bit salty. In the sound sample, you can hear as I fiddle with the guidon to get a buzz that I like. On the last four notes in the sample, I supressed the plucking sound in software to simulate what it might sound like when bowed. (And I cranked the reverb way up.) It does kind of sound like a trumpet!
Download audio file (trumpetsaline.mp3)

What was I saying about making stringed instruments too big for myself? This one is over seven feet tall.

thing 23: rotten stick tension guitar

Continuing to explore the variable tension theme from yesterday: the rotten stick tension guitar uses a hand lever to stretch the string and thus set the pitch. I had that bit of coconut leftover from the banjo, so I used it as a sound radiator. The walnut on the other end is for comfort when you prop the guitar up against your belly (the recommended playing posture).

It sounds kind of like this.
Download audio file (whammystick.mp3)

thing 22: automatic tension guitar

I thought I’d try changing the pitch of a guitar string by pulling it with a solenoid - thus “tension guitar.” I thought I’d be able to get multiple pitches by turning the puller on and off very quickly (PWM) but that didn’t work well, so I was stuck with just two pitches. That was boring, so I added a little finger that frets the string. With the combination of the two, it can play four pitches. Over and over and over, thanks to the automatic strummer. Like this. There’s also video of the various moving parts here.
Download audio file (tensionguitar.mp3)

thing a day 22: tension guitar from ranjit on Vimeo.

Details of the strummer, finger, and puller.

thing 21: Syntho ‘77

In my junkbox I found this vintage 1977 (or so) 76477 synthesizer chip- this model used to be used in arcade machines. It was gonna be another Matchbox Synth - you can see I have the case all prepped - but, whether because it’s old and broken, or because I wasn’t using it right, I couldn’t get any sounds out of it except for these.
Download audio file (syntho77.mp3)

Still, you may not have seen and heard the last of Syntho ‘77!

thing 20: scraper-shaker

The scraper-shaker has a graduated series of notches, an aluminum sound cone, and, of course, a walnut shell full of steel washers. It sounds like this.
Download audio file (scrapershaker.mp3)

It’s kind of surprising how much the little sound cone amplifies the sound.

thing 19: coconut banjo

I was inspired when I saw coconuts for 99c at the bodega, but when I got home it took me half an hour just to get all the delicious meat out of the nut.

I keep making instruments that are too long for my short arms to play comfortably. You’d think I would’ve learned from the rotten stick guitar.

The frets are bamboo skewers - I tuned them by ear so the tuning is kind of shaky. I might add more frets later. Note how the bamboo bridge rests on a point on the membrane (architectural vellum)- this helps to transfer the vibrations of the string. The pick is made of two layers of vellum glued together.

The coconut banjo sounds like this.
Download audio file (coconutbanjo.mp3)

thing 18: trespassers w

Hammered aluminum, old bbq fork with corks stuck on the tines to discourage autodisembowelment. If I’d known how much work it would be to hammer the thing and that it would turn out to sound like this, I wouldn’t have bothered!
Download audio file (trespassersw.mp3)

thing 17: the toehorn

The toehorn is made from a drinking straw double reed and a nerf missile launcher I found in the trash. It sounds pretty much like this.
Download audio file (toehorn.mp3)

(suggested use)

thing 16: gambang bambu

Gambang kayu is a xylophone used in gamelan orchestras. This thing isn’t really that much like a gambang. It’s made from rotten sticks (my favorite ingredient!), string, and a bamboo windchime that was on sale at Rite-Aid for $3.49. It sounds like this.
Download audio file (gambangbambuhall.mp3)

thing 15: walnut bowl

I carved this bowl out of some waste wood I found on the street. When I roll walnuts around in it, it sounds like this.
Download audio file (walnutbowlhall.mp3)

But the real reason I carved it is to use for hammering sheet metal into gong or cymbal shapes. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to have any sheet metal.

things 13 and 14: fish organ with breath controller

Yesterday’s Thing was a breath controller- blow into it to control the volume of today’s Thing: the Fish Organ, so named because the box used to contain smoked fish. And it sounds a little something like this.
Download audio file (fishorgan.mp3)

The keyboard is copper tape cut to shape. It’s tuned (approximately) to the twelve tone Just scale based on 2’s, 3’s, and 5’s. When the little red plug is plugged into the "No breath" jack, the thing plays at full volume without the breath controller.

thing 12: rotten stick upgrade

I added a fingerboard to the rotten stick electric guitar for easier fingering– it’s still only long enough to play about 5 notes. And I made the worst bow ever from another rotten stick and some waxed string. Together, they sound like this.
Download audio file (bowedstickbass.mp3)

thing 11: the brass toad-o-phone

Today’s instrument is a recurved brass horn with a plastic reed made from a drinking straw from these instructions. It looks so pretty, but it’s my solemn duty to inform you that it sounds like this.
Download audio file (brasstoadophone.mp3)

thing 10: glass garbage gong

It’s not very complicated, but it’s one of my favorite instruments-of-the-day so far! I found this piece of glass– I think it was a coffee table once– in the garbage. Suspended from jute and struck with a rubber mallet, it sounds like this. (Use headphones or good speakers if you can - the stereo effects are great.)
Download audio file (glassgarbagegong.mp3)

I think I should tie it to a frame in three directions so it doesn’t swing around so much.

thing 9: electric jasmine kalimba

Kalimba with steel and bamboo tines in an old tea canister, with piezo microphone and 1/4″ output jack. It sounds like this (I did a bit of simple layering with a Loopstation.)
Download audio file (jasminekalimba.mp3)

Inspired by the amazing kalimbas of RP Collier - listen to his music at soundclick and see the beautiful instruments on flickr.

thing 8: tiny wooden whistle

I only had a few minutes to play today, and my first attempt at an instrument today broke, so here’s a teeny tiny little wooden whistle. It sounds like this.
Download audio file (tinywoodenwhistle.mp3)

I’m proud of myself for drilling a 1/8" hole in a 1/4" dowel without breaking it!

thing 7: triple wooden gong

Made of discarded wood from a nearby street construction project. It sounds like this
Download audio file (woodengong.mp3)

thing a day

I’m making a new musical instrument every day in February. On March 1st I think I’ll have to have either a concert or a bonfire. Follow my adventures at flickr or thing-a-day.com!

Some highlights so far: matchbox synthesizer, diet cocarina, rotten stick electric guitar. You can hear sound samples from all of them at their respective pages.

thing 6: egg whistle

A whistle made from an eggshell, fimo clay, and a straw. It sounds like this.
Download audio file (eggwhistle.mp3)

With my egg and the earlier turnip whistle, I tried poking some holes in the body to make an ocarina, but I found that it just stops whistling unless I cover the holes. On the other hand, the soda can ocarina worked just fine, relatively speaking. Are there any ocarina experts out there who can shed some light on this?

thing 5: rotten stick electric guitar

For today’s thing-a-day: a damp, rotten stick from the park; an old guitar string; a hand-wound electromagnetic pickup.

It sounds like this. (Sorry, I’ve only had a few minutes to start learning how to play it)
Download audio file (stickguitar.mp3)

thing 4: the diet cocarina

Can I make another musical instrument every single day of the month? We’ll see if my head explodes first.

Today: An ocarina made from a coke can, straw, and poster gum. It sounds like this.
Download audio file (cokarina.mp3)

thing 3: matchbox synthesizer

Sticking with the musical instrument theme: the teeniest little synthesizer. Video and sound here.

thing-a-day: matchbox synthesizer from ranjit on Vimeo.

day 2: turnip whistle

Made from a turnip, held together with toothpicks. It sounds like this.
Download audio file (turnipwhistle.mp3)

walnut whistle

Yesterday I went to a whistle workshop, so today I thought it was time to make a whistle out of a walnut shell.

On the inside there’s a piece cut from another walnut shell which directs air from the hole at the end up to the fipple.

It sounds like this:
walnutwhistle.mp3
Download audio file (walnutwhistle.mp3)

Mister Resistor in Concert

My Parsons students are playing a concert on Sunday the 16th - it’s also their final exam. Please come out and support them!

It’ll be 4pm, Dec. 16th at The Openhouse at 201 Mulberry Street in SoHo, Manhattan - just south of Spring Street.

Here’s a preview of what some of the students are working on.

Mister Resistor Preview 1 from ranjit on Vimeo.

Create Digital Music, Etsy Labs and Make Magazine present
A Very Special Handmade Music Night
featuring Mister Resistor live in concert
Sunday December 16th, 2-5pm
at The Openhouse, 201 Mulberry St near Spring St in SoHo
$FREE
more info at misterresistor.com or createdigitalmusic.com

Bring your hand-carved ocarinas, homebrew synthesizers, circuit bent toys and tin can banjos to show and tell and jam.

At 4pm, enjoy the handmade sonic stylings of Mister Resistor- these Parsons students have spent the semester building and playing musical instruments made from cassette tape, microchips, oatmeal boxes, and much more.

To help newcomers learn how to make their own creations, Create Digital Music’s Peter Kirn will lead off with a workshop on musical electronics, with free kits from PAiA Corporation that uses pencil markings to produce circuits. (No soldering required, so total beginners can give it a try. Kits for the project are free, on a first-come, first-served basis.) Throughout the afternoon, New York’s top musical makers will meet and display their creations.

greenmarket scans of the week continue!

more greens * buy prints

lev the thereminbot sings for boingboing tv

Lev’s featured in the premiere episode of BoingBoing TV today.

Thanks, boingers!

thingamajigs this weekend

I was involved in a few events at the Festival of Music for People and Thingamajigs in Oakland, California:

Saturday 12-2: Circuit-bending* party at The Crucible to make instruments for Sunday. Bring an electronic musical toy to sacrifice!
Saturday 5:30-6:30: Artists’ talk at Rock Paper Scissors Gallery along with Stewart Port and Edward Schocker.
Sunday 1-2: Noise parade at Lake Merritt using the instruments we made on Saturday! Starting neat the sign at the entrance to Children’s Fairyland (Also check out Betsey’s installation which was at the same spot from 4-6).

wired.com: MIDI Ironing Boards, Theremin Crutches Squeal at Handmade Music Event

I’m quoted in a wired.com article about the Handmade Music events and homemade instruments.

“There’s already a lot of crap music in the world and it hasn’t killed us.”

More at wired.com, 9/27/07.

lev plays patsy

Here’s LEV again, because one “Crazy” wasn’t enough.

Lev plays Patsy from ranjit on Vimeo.

(also on youtube)

lev and thumpbot play “crazy”

Here’s LEV, my theremin-playing robot first seen at Artbots 2003, playing a familiar song with the help of the newly built thumpbot and an obsolete synthesizer.

Lev and Thumpbot play “Crazy” from ranjit on Vimeo.

(also on youtube)

They don’t play so well, but what do you expect from robots?

ranjit in time out ny

Time Out NY magazine has a small feature about handmade music nights at Etsy Labs, and it includes a little bit about me and a photo of one of my handmade music gadgets.

handmade music night

Etsy Labs, Create Digital Music, and Make Magazine have been holding a series of handmade music nights at Etsy’s Brooklyn headquarters, where people share the musical gadgets they’ve made. It’s just been featured in Time Out NY (scan). CDM’s got nice wrapups of the first (with video, including me!) and second events.

Here’s a video of the wind-up noisemaker I made for the second handmade music night:

Six keys, four springs, one knob from ranjit on Vimeo.

music for people and thingamajigs, oakland

I’ll be participating in the 10th Annual Festival of Music for People and Thingamajigs in Oakland, CA, September 28-30. This is one of the thingamajigs I’ll be bringing. This is another.

buy prints!

If you would like to buy prints of my photos, I've set up a little online store at moonmilk.etsy.com. Go! Spend money!

video: misericordiam on governor’s island

Misericordiam visited the Figment Festival on Governor’s Island, New York City, this July. For the first time, I suspended the piece from a tree in the open air rather than from an indoor framework. It was a beautiful day to hang accordions in trees. Here’s some video from the festival.

Accordions in trees!.

There’s some photos of Misericordiam al fresco over at flickr.

artbots philly reviewed

There’s no attempt to create a humanoid with Misericordiam, by Ranjit Bhatnagar, an accordion hung from a rope. It compresses and, thanks to gravity, decompresses with a convulsive abandon. I don’t know if it had any other purpose than humor, but I didn’t feel like I needed more.

– roberta fallon and libby rosof’s artblog: The human side of artbots

bent festival

I’m going to be at the Bent Festival this weekend. My band Mister Resistor is playing Saturday night and I’m going to be making some sort of site-specific sound sculpture on the spot during the festival. Both things are pretty much improvised, but there’s likely to be some of and perhaps a bit of and a large helping of .

Bent Festival New York City - April 26-28 2007
Presented by The Tank
All workshops and concerts will be held at
Eyebeam Atelier
540 W. 21st Street, (between 10th and 11th Avenues), NY, NY

greenmarket produce scans in edible brooklyn magazine

Some of my vegevision has been featured in Edible Brooklyn magazine! More information about the project and about purchasing prints from the series can be found on the project page.