instrument-a-day 28: sproing!March 1st, 2011
sproing!!!
all posts about sound sculpture and music
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instrument-a-day 27: bent buddha box beatFebruary 28th, 2011
a little oscillator that triggers the box to switch to another chant over and over again.
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instrument-a-day 26: bent buddha boxFebruary 28th, 2011
Du Yun brought me this box from Shanghai, and I opened it up for a minor lobotomy.
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instrument-a-day 25: water bowlFebruary 27th, 2011
I always liked the sounds I got while washing big steel bowls.
Trivia: the musical instrument called the Waterphone does contain water, but is named for its inventor, Richard Waters.
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instrument-a-day 24: handmade electronic noiseFebruary 26th, 2011
squeaky exercises from the pages of the book "Handmade Electronic Music" by Nic Collins.
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instrument-a-day 23: mechanical synthesizerFebruary 23rd, 2011
This trick was used as far back as the 19th century to synthesize musical tones. The gears have 24, 27, 30, 32, 36, 40, 45, and 48 teeth, so the notes are all related by simple fractions – that makes this a just intonation scale rather than equal temperament.
There's plans and instructions on thingiverse: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6662
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instrument-a-day 22: baseball chimesFebruary 23rd, 2011
In honor of the start of spring training and in the hope that spring weather will be here soon.
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instrument-a-day 20 & 21: 8-bit violinFebruary 22nd, 2011
A working violin made from maple and oak craft wood. The design is all 90 degree angles except the fingerboard. The tuning pegs are literally square pegs in round holes.
The thing's tuned two half-steps low until it gets used to the tension.
I have never played a violin, so many thanks to Bre Pettis who dusted off his 15-years-neglected fiddling skills to test-drive this violin! (Hey NYC violinists! Want to help test & demo this thing? Contact me.)
I hope to get all the designs uploaded to thingiverse soon – keep an eye on moonmilk.com if you're interested.
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instrument-a-day 19: brass whistleFebruary 22nd, 2011
Yeah, I like whistles. This one's made from a brass tube and a wooden dowel from a craft store. The fipple was cut with a hacksaw, and the finger holes drilled with a drill press.
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instrument-a-day 18: garbage drainpipeFebruary 19th, 2011
Someone left a big chunk of gutter drain pipe in the garbage, and a sturdy wooden handle, just for me.
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instrument-a-day 17: wooden strings & rattlesFebruary 19th, 2011
I lasercut some strips of poplar for another project, and found that the waste wood could be plucked like guitar strings. The strips make pretty good rattles too.
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instrument-a-day 16: light sensorFebruary 19th, 2011
It's just a photodiode, a 9-volt battery, and a little amplifier, but it makes the vibrations in artificial light audible. A lot of what you hear is derived from 60Hz AC power, but electronic displays have tones of their own.
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instrument-a-day 15: piano scannerFebruary 15th, 2011
Scanning a handheld magnetic pickup back and forth over the piano strings makes a pretty neat sound. I may try attaching a rail on which the pickup can slide back and forth.
The pickup is plugged into an ordinary guitar amp.
Plug: Fun with Sensors workshop this Saturday at NYC Resistor!
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instrument-a-day 14: corn musicFebruary 14th, 2011
I’ve always thought the patterns on corncobs looked like player piano rolls. So I wrote a program that watches a slowly-turning corncob. Whenever a particularly dark kernel crosses the centerline of the image, it plays a note corresponding to the height.
You can download the Processing code from moonmilk.com/11/02/cornscan.txt.
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instrument-a-day 13: garbage garbage can lidFebruary 14th, 2011
On the way to SHARE last night, I
packed a contact microphone and drumsticks but no instrument, telling
myself I’d find something in the garbage on the way there. What I
found was this nice metal garbage can lid.
packed a contact microphone and drumsticks but no instrument, telling
myself I’d find something in the garbage on the way there. What I
found was this nice metal garbage can lid.