moonmilk

instrument-a-day 4: remote interferenceFebruary 4th, 2010

picking up noise from the guts of remote controls.

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instrument-a-day 3: monomarxFebruary 3rd, 2010

I want a marxophone (video) but they go for hundreds of dollars on ebay.
This is a proof-of-concept test for making my own marxophone…
someday…

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instrument-a-day 2: glaciophoneFebruary 2nd, 2010

I pulled up some chunks of ice from a frozen puddle and bonked them
with another bit of ice.

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instrument-a-day 1: scratchlightFebruary 1st, 2010

A warm-up instrument to start the month, and preparation for my
upcoming fun with coils workshop.  I assembled a simple magnetic field
amplifier kit and used it to listen to the motor of a wind-up
flashlight.

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laughing & singing with the toy pianoDecember 5th, 2009

I’ve been working on cyborging a broken down old toy piano.

live at barbèsMarch 5th, 2009

The Glass Bees and I played a bunch of my homemade instruments last night at Barbès in Brooklyn. (The show was made possible by Bethany Ryker, who brings interesting stuff to Barbès every Wednesday and to wfmu every Sunday.)

Here’s some excerpts from the show– thanks to bee Chris for editing and naming the songs!

You may be able to catch an interview and some more from the show on NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered this Saturday or Sunday. [Update: the interview aired on March 7th and can be read & heard on NPR's site.]

photo: me and two bees with our granny-carts full of junkstruments!

instrument-a-day 28: melt (after mineko grimmer)February 28th, 2009

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.

Many thanks to Thing-a-Day for inspiring the instrument-a-day project for the second year in a row!

instrument-a-day 27: semi-automatic bassFebruary 28th, 2009

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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instrument-a-day 26: tiny tuning forkFebruary 27th, 2009

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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instrument-a-day 24: mudflailFebruary 27th, 2009

I found this arboreal flail in a mud puddle in the park, so I glued it to a motor. It keeps the beat pretty well, until it falls apart.

It sounds like this. (Video here.)

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