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Artists’ Statements

is crucial; this is something crocodile removed one by one and the connec- CLIP ART clips are very good for. tions soldered. Even at this stage, Phil Archer, 61 Wymer Street, When building (admittedly very a set of crocodile clips has its uses. Does Norwich NR2 4BJ, U.K. simple) circuits from scratch, I instinc- a connection need to be held in place E-mail: . tively prefer to employ a Peter Vogel while it is soldered? Use crocodile clips. [1] approach, in which components are Are components getting too hot for the Sound examples and photographs related to soldered together directly, bypassing fingers? Use crocodile clips. Also, when this article are available at . ing all the necessary components from posterity and that minijack-to-XLR breadboard to circuit board has always converter cannot be found—break out I was initially unsure whether these seemed too much like hard work, and the crocodile clips and connect them glorified strips of wire were worthy I worry that my euphoria at creating a directly. of the title “gizmo,” but my reliance working circuit will cause a lapse in Circuit-bending requires a similar on them in my work outweighed any concentration as I attempt to rebuild it. flexibility—whether in exploring the doubts in the end. The “crocodile clip” Instead, in the prototyping and test- circuit board in a live performance or or “alligator clip” is possibly one of the ing stage of construction, crocodile searching for bends to permanently most useful and elemental pieces of clips hold all the elements in place, build into the device, a crocodile clip equipment in my toolbox, employed often gripping multiple components in or two make useful hunting compan- in various ways during the creation their maw. Elements can be exchanged, ions. Once one set of jaws has clamped of a work. points can be bridged and even entire itself around the leg of a chip, the My practice is heavily centered on separate circuits integrated in a snap. other head is free to roam (clasping a circuit-bending and hardware hack- These works in progress are fragile and resistor between its teeth if one is not ing—the creative modification and ephemeral constructions, relying on feeling too reckless), tracking down appropriation of existing objects to the strength of springs rather than other interesting points to bridge. entice the unexpected from the famil- copper tracks to preserve them from As interrelationships are formed iar. In such hands-on electronics, the collapse. among homemade circuitry, modified ability to make and break connections It is always with a slight sense of sad- consumer electronics and end users, between components quickly and easily ness (and trepidation) that the clips are these qualities of flexibility, ephemeral-

Fig. 1. Phil Archer, work in progress, alligator clips and components, 2007. (Photo © Phil Archer)

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ity and fragility also permeate the work interest over recent years. For many in will also allow an audio line-in if the produced. A hardware-hacking, circuit- the field, the proliferation of cheap intention is to process sound through bending approach to music brings with audio hardware devices and the poten- the loop. it the realization that no connection, tial sonic complexities found in multi- An additional sonic feature of the circuit or object is monolithic; nothing processor DSP chips have opened new connectors can be described as dirty is ever “finished” or too sacred to be possibilities. With the use of cheap cross modulation. It relies on the non- reworked or incorporated into another molded plastic Y connectors, I have linear modulations that occur when the system. Any component could easily be rejuvenated and reinvented just about output of two or more of the above connected to any other component, all my studio equipment new and old setups are squashed into the same input any circuit to another circuit; every- and accessed a rich interactive relation- of another piece of hardware (ampli- thing becomes a potential element in ship with the resulting electronic feed- fier, mixer, EQ, etc.) through Y connec- a network of new configurations and back. tors. The level of interference from relationships. By wrongly wiring any piece of audio each signal, and the resultant mix of hardware, a sometimes-vast palette of the composite signal, is an unstable Note sonic activity can be discovered. Singu- balance of the input signal levels. Vary- lar dynamic processors or equalizers ing connector formats are available 1. Peter Vogel is a pioneer of interactive sculptural electronics whose works emphasize the aesthetic with the audio output connected to the to accommodate different jack sizes, qualities of electronic components and circuits. audio input create what I call “guerrilla but added spectral coloration can be oscillators.” My notion of raw synthesis gained when using stereo versions, as Phil Archer completed a Ph.D. in composition involves either more objects in the loop they sometimes cause comb filtering or at the University of East Anglia in 2004 and chain or the out-to-in connection of other phase-related artifacts, or simply is currently working at the Norwich School of more complex DSP-based processors, confuse balanced in/outputs. Art and Design. His main areas of interest are allowing multiple effects to be inter- Of course it is possible to use the circuit-bending and hardware hacking, the creation of electro-mechanical musical in- nally chained and configured. To access Tudoresque approach of running the struments and interfaces, and the use of these the sounds created by such an act, one inputs and outputs of many objects into in live performance situations. needs a “tap” out from the closed cir- a mixing matrix that can create and cuit loop. The use of a Y connector at access a number of potential feedback the output jack stage provides this (Fig. loop points and routings to a master AUDIO Y CONNECTORS: 2). A further connector on the input output. Another option is to use a MY SECRET FOR INSTANT GUERRILLA OSCILLATORS, AW YNTHESIS AND IRTY R S D Fig. 2. A three-band parametric equalizer and a simple distortion pedal each create guerrilla CROSS MODULATIONS oscillators by connecting output to input, using Y connectors to access resulting sonic activ- Andy Keep, Department of Music, ity. (Photo © Andy Keep) Both outputs are combined in a further Y connector at the input to a mini amplifier, creating potential dirty cross modulation in this small modular feedback Bath Spa University, Newton instrument. St Loe, Bath BA2 9BN, U.K. E-mail: .

Perhaps I am overly enthusiastic about audio Y connectors, but I have realized that nearly all my performance and research over the last 5 years has been made possible because of them. It is not that I think they are aesthetically pleas- ing in themselves, even though I have a small collection on every desktop, shelf and workbench in my home and studio. Some have been lying around since the 1980s, when I used to try and squeeze as much action as I could from a few cheap pieces of music technology. Now I use lots of them, as the core configu- ration element in creating instant non- linear performance instruments and processors that exploit electronic feed- back. Live electronics entered an exciting post-digital phase with the possibilities created by the mixing and matching of any era or technology of audio equip- ment to create unique modular per- formance environments. Both live electronics and the use of electronic feedback have received much renewed

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soldering iron and create custom hard- wired looping components or objects. However, the Y connector offers access to any discrete loops for modular per- formance or any interrelated configura- tions. This allows for fluid potential topologies of electronic feedback instruments that can be explored, configured and reconfigured easily during performance. It is also a really quick way to assess potential instrumen- talization of any piece of hardware when searching through old equipment that has been stored in the back of the studio or garage for years. Used surrep- titiously, this method can be very useful when looking to purchase any bargain or second-hand equipment, so I recom- mend: Always keep a short jack lead Fig. 3. John Wynne’s father’s hearing aids, 2007. (Photo © John Wynne) and a Y connector in one’s pocket.

Andy Keep is a U.K.-based performer of live sations we assumed he would not be Feedback issue of Resonance magazine electronics, in the closing stage of practice-led able to hear without his hearing aids, (2002), but the general perception of doctoral research into “Responsive Perfor- although we may previously have been feedback is overwhelmingly negative. mance Strategies with Electronic Feedback.” He is also a senior lecturer and teaching fel- misled by the selective nature of his In a recent study at Salford University, low at Bath Spa University, designing and hearing loss when he was at home. it took second place only to vomiting teaching fluid approaches to performance and Just handling these objects makes in a list of the sounds people found composition using a wide range of audio tech- you feel old: your fingers seem clumsy most upsetting or irritating. nologies and sounding objects. He is currently and, unless your eyesight is perfect, The pitch and timbre of the feed- a director of the U.K.’s Sonic Arts Network. glasses or some other magnification back produced by these devices change are essential, even to insert a battery. in ways that are interesting and difficult The piece makes use of the minute to predict, depending on their proxim- HEARING LOSS but complex feedback field produced ity to each other and the direction in John Wynne, London College of by what are essentially six tiny micro- which they face, the size and shape of Communication, University of the Arts, phones and six tiny speakers in close the space which contains them and the London, U.K. E-mail: . Web site: . cult to localize. When I arrived home each device, designed to protect the in London from Vancouver after my user from ear-damaging build-up of Transferring the emphasis from hearing father’s funeral, one of the hearing aids feedback, mean that rather than to loss in the title of this installation had turned itself on inside my suitcase, unchanging tones, the effect is rather results in an interesting shift from a and I felt for a few moments like Harry like a conversation between the six medical or factual orientation to an Caul at the end of The Conversation as diminutive objects as feedback builds emotional or philosophical one. Hear- I searched high and low for the source up and subsides in complex polyphonic ing loss is a routine, progressive physical of the annoying new sound in my flat patterns. disability; hearing loss is something before remembering the hearing aids In most of my installation work, altogether more nebulous and poetic. in my bag. Installing the work in Van- the only visual element is the sound- My father died in 2006, leaving couver triggered a bout of tinnitus, making technology itself, and here I behind three pairs of hearing aids my nervous system’s own feedback want to let physics and the emotional (Fig. 3) and a typically extensive supply loop, from which I have still not fully associations of these evocative objects of batteries. Hearing aids, like false recovered. speak for themselves, but when I looked teeth, are very personal objects that In my work with auditory warnings through Dad’s meticulously organized are not only used daily but are actually of my own design, I have sought to and labeled slides just before installing, inserted into bodily orifices. One of the draw attention to an abstract beauty I came across an image I immediately first things that struck me when I began in alarm sounds that is usually ignored knew belonged in the piece. It is a shot to work with them is that they are made because of their overwhelming annoy- taken by him somewhere in the middle in the shape of my father’s ear canals, ance factor and their association with of the Atlantic. We were on the Home- giving a positive shape to a negative, danger. Likewise, feedback is most ric, on our way to the port of Quebec internal and intimate space that no often seen as a nuisance and a poten- City from Europe: I would have been 1 longer exists. It was literally through tial danger to hearing or to electronic about 2 ⁄ 2 years old and this was my these objects that he heard the world equipment rather than as legitimate first trip to Canada, where I was to grow during the final years of his life. Inter- material for music or art. There is sig- up. It was uncharacteristic of him to estingly, his hearing seemed to recover nificant interest in feedback in the take a picture of nothing but waves, somewhat on his deathbed. We were experimental music community, as even more so to give it the arguably surprised at his ability to follow conver- witnessed by Knut Aufermann’s special poetic title Cold Atlantic, and the empti-

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ness of the image speaks of absence or loss in a way that echoes the lack of an active sound source in the piece. And it is an unexpected record of the world seen through my father’s eyes. Hearing Loss addresses the absence of the person for whom these devices were made, and for this purpose, few sound sources could be more suitable than feedback, “the Zen-like infinite amplification of silence.” Its “tautologi- cal elegance” [1] and musical potential contradict its status as problem or sys- temic fault: in this piece, its antagonis- tic relationship to hearing aids is harnessed to explore the presence of loss [2].

References and Notes 1. Nicolas Collins, “All This and Brains Too: 30 Years of Howling Round,” Resonance 9, No. 2, 6–7 (2002). 2. Hearing Loss premiered at Signal and Noise 2007 in Vancouver, Canada.

John Wynne has a Ph.D. in Sound Art from Goldsmiths College, University of London and is a Senior Lecturer at the University of the Arts, London. Recent works include Hearing Voices, an installation and award-winning radio piece based on endangered click-lan- guages in the Kalahari Desert and a huge 17- channel installation, 230 Unwanted Speakers. He is currently artist-in-residence at Harefield Hospital in Middlesex, one of the world’s leading centers for heart and lung transplantation. Fig. 4. Richard Garrett’s Vantage Pro at home in North Wales, 2004. (Photo © Richard Garrett)

HE AVIS NSTRUMENTS T D I small camera battery recharged by a values received. Different weather VANTAGE PRO WEATHER tiny photovoltaic cell; and there are no events produce different kinds of STATION cables running into the house. The sounds but, typically, temperature and Richard Garrett, Bwlch y Maen, receiver can accommodate a data log- humidity provide bass drones; air pres- Abertrinant, Bryncrug, Tywyn, ger that holds days’ or months’ worth sure provides higher-pitched accompa- Gwynedd, LL36 9RH, U.K. of information ready for download. niment; and the wind produces a lead E-mail: . Best of all, the device is very clearly voice whose pitch, intensity and phras- Web site: . documented. When I first purchased ing all change as it shifts direction, ebbs the system, I anticipated that it would and flows. Rain, when it rains, is heard Sound examples related to this article be the task of a week or two to get my as random percussive events whose are available at . enough to write an interface routine of fall. for Max/MSP. To my pleasure and The Vantage Pro is well suited to My favorite piece of equipment has to surprise, I found the data logger so well this work because of its reliability. It be the Vantage Pro electronic weather written that I was able to get it up and is a truly professional instrument and station sitting in my back garden. This running in about a day and a half. is built to withstand serious weather. unit, built by Davis Instruments of The Vantage Pro forms the hub of In fact, when I first acquired it, it got Hayward, California, collects data my Weathersongs Project: a real-time blown over a couple of times and still regarding air temperature, pressure, installation that composes music from worked. So long as one changes the wind speed, wind direction, humidity the ever-changing patterns of wind, battery once every 2 years, cleans out and rainfall rate and, every 2 or 3 sec- rain, temperature and pressure that the rain collector from time to time onds, transmits them by radio to a make up the weather here in North and evicts spiders from the sensor suite computer in my studio. This data then Wales. In the installation, a program when necessary, it keeps working. makes up the raw material for composi- written in Max sits in a continuous loop Every day, the Vantage Pro just sits tion. making up musical phrases. Each time there, a continuous source of nonran- The Vantage Pro (Fig. 4) is com- it needs to choose a new note, it checks dom, highly complex data, probably pletely self-contained; all the sensors out recent data input and selects pitch, never repeating itself but always full of and the radio transmitter run off a intensity and duration based on the patterns. Although I bought it specifi-

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cally for this project, I can see myself using it as a controller for music for years to come. It is a fantastic source for the algorithmic composer. A chance to duet with the breath of the planet. Richard Garrett is a composer and guitarist living in Snowdonia, North Wales. His main fields of work are algorithmic composition and jazz.

THE DICTAPHONE IN MY LIFE James Saunders, 4 Maple Croft, Netherton, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, HD4 7HS, U.K. E-mail: . Web site: .

Sound examples related to this article are available at . Fig. 5. Olympus S711 dictation machines connected to a piezo feedback network. (Photo © James Saunders) I began using tape dictation machines in versions of my modular composition #[unassigned] in 2001. I wanted to work with some simple yet robust sound- ing excellent results when recombining out why: A whole new world has just processing tools that avoided the use the recorded sound with its acoustic opened up for me. of computers: I needed something that source. The sound quality is also natu- Although I have generally used dicta- did not crash, did not need lengthy rally lo-fi, and all the more beautiful for tion machines in small ensemble pieces sound checks and was extremely it. There is very little bass, and although set in a time structure that encourages portable and relatively ubiquitous in they only output 150 mW, they have a echoes of earlier material to return order to facilitate future performances. surprising capacity for projection, even later in the piece, I have also used them My wife had a Sanyo TRC-580M that, in relatively dense textures. in purely electronic setups and, more in addition to standard volume, record This simple instrument revolution- recently, a month-long installation and playback controls, provided the ized the way I worked and subsequently where visitors operated four machines, option to play and record at two speeds altered the types of sound materials I recording and playing back parts of the (2.4 and 1.2 cm/sec), had a voice- employed in my music. Previously I had ambient and composed soundscape activated recording control (which been drawn to textures that revolved over an extended timescale (#0505- could be calibrated to trigger record- around isolated gestures placed in a 040606-[i], Keith Talent Gallery, Lon- ing at alterable ambient sound levels) field of silence, with occasional drones. don, May–June 2006). In addition to and allowed the tape to be scanned Using dictation machines altered this using them in my own compositions, backward or forward using the play balance significantly by creating denser I have also used dictation machines as and rewind or fast-forward controls laminar planes that fused disjunct ele- performance instruments when playing simultaneously. The limitations ments together. Indeed, an interesting pieces by other composers or improvis- imposed by this functionality defined characteristic of these devices is their ing. I connect them to more extended my initial uses of the machine and to quasi-acoustic sound quality: although electronic networks incorporating some extent the development of my it is clear that some processing is taking homemade electronics and guitar music in general over the past 5 years. place (primarily due to the distortion), effects pedal (see Fig. 1), or to each I bought a second identical model in some textures the recorded and live other. A simple feedback loop can also and used them together for the first sound are relatively hard to distinguish, be created by joining the headphone time in #051201, for cello, clarinet, which is emphasized by their very defi- and microphone jacks of two machines two radios and two dictation machines. nite sense of location due to the small in a loop and pressing “record”: Move- The machines were used to record speaker size. They can also be reposi- ment of the players creates changes of sections of the music at 2.4 cm/sec and tioned in space or moved around dur- pitch and timbre. play them back later in the piece at 1.2 ing playback or recording, to diffuse Since 2001 I have collected more cm/sec. This sampling allowed overlay- sound in a very direct manner. My machines and currently own 11. I have ing of material such that an event could compositional interests generally experimented with models by Sanyo, be fed back into the piece a number revolve around working with unstable Ferguson and Sony, but the best for my of times, each an octave lower and sounds, such as extremely slow bow uses is definitely the Olympus S711 half the speed, while overdubbing live speeds or minimal breath pressure, and (Fig. 5), principally because of its rela- sound. One of the wonderful character- the nature of these instruments is per- tively silent keys, fast rewind speed and istics of these devices, however, is the fectly suited to finding points of contact reliability. Importantly, however, they fact that they do not quite play back at with such sounds. More recently I have are simple to use, and once the cush- exactly half the speed: There is always been exploring what happens inside ioning technique for silent button some slight fluctuation and distortion. the box. One of my machines has just operation has been learned, they are This results in some detuning, produc- broken, so I have taken it apart to find relatively foolproof in performance.

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For the moment, dictation machines tionally, but removing the battery pack attached to the take-up spool.) Then are also readily available, although the leaves exactly enough room for tape to take a thin slice of splicing tape or increased use of digital technology for clear the outer edge of the machine. Scotch tape and attach the cassette tape note taking has probably signaled the (Thank you, Sony.) to this leader. (Perhaps cut the leader a end of their product life, which is a Using the delay is fairly simple— bit short so that the splicing tape never cause for concern. one need only decide how long a touches the heads.) delay is wanted. The minimum is When finished with these opera- James Saunders is a composer and lectures at about 6 seconds—it takes the recorded tions, carefully put everything back the University of Huddersfield, U.K. sound on the tape that long to move together. I often use toothpicks or from the recording deck to the play- wooden Q-Tips to help guide the tape. back deck when the units are close Drafting tape can also be used to hold A SONY WALKMAN PRO together. One can adjust this distance things down—it comes off easily. When CASSETTE TAPE DELAY during use by gently pulling the two the work is done, two cassettes will be Richard Lerman, Interdisciplinary Arts units apart. Yes, there is tape slip- spliced together. For storage, fold them and Performance—2151, Arizona State page and a warbling sound as the on top of one another and take up the University, the West Campus, P.O. Box speed briefly becomes unstable, but slack by winding the record cassette 37100, Phoenix, AZ 85069-7100, U.S.A. it works. Generally, I keep the units with a pencil. E-mail: . in Dolby C mode and always use metal To rewind the cassette delay: tape. 1. Remove the take-up cassette from Sound examples and additional images To build the cassette delay system, the recorder. related to this article are available at the two cassettes must be carefully 2. Hold it at the same height as the . taken apart—make sure to use the Walkman. kind that are held together with five 3. Push rewind on the recording I engineered and built the Sony Walk- screws. The difficulty lies in taking off cassette. man Pro tape delay in summer 1983. I the thin plastic piece atop the tape 4. The tape will quickly rewind and still use it in performance, with the hubs. These reduce friction inside the not bind. same cassettes and Walkman recorders, cassette. When this part is off, the very To maximize flexibility from tape some 24 years later. thin tape often curls and twists around. delay, I built a 6 x 4 matrix mixer. It became really tiresome to arrange In any case, one must remove the The schematic appears on my web site for two stereo tape recorders at every hubs and file a very narrow slot in the [1]. The mixer allowed me to assign gig, and I was determined to find a way top and bottom halves of both cassette inputs to the recorders and send the to make this delay system. The Walk- cases. Figure 6 shows where this slot playback from the left and right chan- man was perfect for this purpose must be. Furthermore, the splines must nels back into the delay at varying because it had very accurate speed be removed from the feed hub of the volume levels. control (simply leave the speed tune playback (take-up) cassette. Use an Perhaps the high point in using this knob to OFF) and the recorders them- Exacto blade or very fine wire cutters. delay occurred at the 1986 New Music selves needed no modification. I know Discard (or save for future use) one America Festival in Houston, where my they did not design this feature inten- spool of the tape. (Leave the leader piece A Matter of Scale was performed

Fig. 6. Shown here is the threading of the two cassettes for the tape delay, with the tops of the cassettes removed. (Photo © Richard Lerman)

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Fig. 7. Brett Ian Balogh, When Airwaves Swing, installation detail, 2006. (Photo © Brett Ian Balogh)

inside the Astrodome. I used the delay WHEN AIRWAVES SWING: As an artist, I am interested in eluci- and mixer on the pitcher’s mound. CONFESSIONS OF A RADIO dating fundamental relationships in Other performers in left, center and ENTHUSIAST nature through the creation of instru- right field and at first and third base ments and systems that present them- Brett Ian Balogh, 1744 West Augusta played small instruments made from selves as tools of exploration. My works Boulevard, Apartment 1, Chicago, IL piezo disks with harpsichord wire and are objects to think “with” rather than 60622, U.S.A. E-mail: ; . was intrigued by the combination of to be such a device; however, it is usu- Web site: . small instruments, large sound and ally overlooked as an instrument of large space. My one regret was not ©2007 Brett Ian Balogh discovery. This is in part because of its recording the unique sound of the ubiquity in our lives, having been a Sound examples and other resources stadium trash being swept down the major source of information and enter- related to this article are available at steps after a game at our single 3 AM tainment in our media diets for many . rehearsal. years. However, its reign as a portable When airwaves swing, entertainment device has been usurped Variants distant voices sing. by the advent of Walkmans, Discmans I have tried to hold another playback and now iPods. Perhaps this is for the —Kraftwerk [1] head somewhere in the middle of the better: As the radio sinks into the back- delay to thicken the plot, but another Radio was a gift to me that I did water of our commercial gadget lust, its device is needed here that can be prop- not initially appreciate. One holiday aesthetic role in our lives can be rein- erly aligned to the tape. around the turn of the 21st century, vented. I did make a video piece in 1972 for I was presented with a Grundig Satellit I would like to present the radio in 1 four ⁄2-in video decks that had one 800 worldband receiver. It sat unused the role of translator, mediating the tape threaded through all four. I had in its box until one day a pianist friend languages of space, time, matter and to make sure that the slower decks were of mine asked me to join him in an energy. The vibrations of the physical first in line, allowing the faster decks experimental performance. I showed world, perceived as sound, and those to take up tape slack. up with the set under my arm and I of electromagnetism, conceived as Be sure to clean the tape heads often have never been the same since. A few energy, are fundamentally related in when using this delay system. Finally, years and many radios later, I found terms of their motion. However, these further images detailing this tape delay myself listening to the chatter on the two phenomena inhabit distinct worlds, are found on my web site noted below. HAM bands as I was performing my differing in both their makeup and morning rituals. I mused over the pre- their media of transmission. Because Reference caffeinated conversations regarding of these differences, we can directly Yagi antenna arrays, finding the early- 1. See for additonal sense sound, but it may not always be images and examples of the author’s sound work. In morning shop talk odd. Then, as I possible to do so with electromagnet- January 2007, EM Records of Osaka, Japan, released looked at myself in the mirror, I real- ism. The radio is a physical object and a 2-CD set of Travelon Gamelon and other works by Richard Lerman from 1964 to 1987; . enthusiast. these two worlds, allowing communica-

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tion between them. It resonates not flanked by two easy chairs that invite only with the movements of the “ether,” the visitors to sit by it, bathed in the DISTORTED RF LULLABIES but also with the sounds contained intimate glow of a small lamp. The César Dávila-Irizarry, 5359 San Vicente within. The radio augments our senses, experience of listening to the radio Boulevard, Apartment 120, Los Ange- allowing us to perceive those motions is not, however, what one might expect, les, CA 90019. E-mail: of the environment that we perpetually due to the sound being “processed” by . inhabit that are just beyond our appre- the physical nature of the wire antenna. hension. Sounds are part of the physi- The resulting soundscape is without Sound examples related to this article are cality of a place as much as the objects center, and the echoing voices and available at . I set out to explore the relationships the opportunity to tend the space dur- between tangible and intangible space ing the exhibition and I encountered All places have different sounds; a silent in my most recent installation, When something I did not expect. Visitors sat night in one place could be interpreted Airwaves Swing (Fig. 7). It consists of with me around the radio and talked as a cacophony of sound in another. a Pathe-Marconi five-tube superhet about their experiences with sound and When I moved to the United States 5 AM receiver whose antenna not only radio, about their childhood memories years ago, I was shocked at the dead receives radio signals, but also acts as or their imaginary worlds. I discovered silence I found at night. I realized that the radio’s loudspeaker. The radio and that the radio also provides an environ- in my homeland, Puerto Rico, to expe- audio signals vibrate simultaneously ment that enables us to translate our rience a “silent night” means to sleep along the long wire antenna. Each own internal worlds into the one we tucked in bed by the orchestral lullabies signal behaves according to its unique share. of countless grasshoppers, pets and/or nature even as they occupy the same stray cats and dogs, distant or nearby medium. The resonant properties of Reference traffic and coquis (tiny tree frogs whose the wire antenna allow for the clear 1. Kraftwerk, “Airwaves,” Radioactivity (1975). singing is normal to the Puerto Rican reception of the radio signal, but dis- Brett Ian Balogh is an artist and instructor ear; Hawaii, however, has recently tort the audio signal. The appearance in the Department of Art and Technology found itself with so many—as a conse- of the installation is similar to a scene Studies at the School of the Art Institute of quence of Puerto Rican immigration— one may find in any home. The radio is Chicago. that people are hired to exterminate them). So many elements create the soundscape of a Puerto Rican night. All have influenced me in my performance and selection of the sounds I extract from the transistor radios I hack. I tend Fig. 8. Compu-radio: to make a single unit explore a wide Transistor radio turned into an oscillator unit/ range of frequencies, from insect-like noisemaker; its home- sounds to the roar of heavy machinery made circuit-board exten- that creates (or destroys) a town. sion uses a beta videotape The transistor radio I cherish the case as a shell. (Photo © César Dávila-Irizarry) most, the one with the most expressive sounds, is my “compu-radio” (Fig. 8). When I made it, everyone around me was doing laptop-based work, but I was not able to buy a laptop at the time. So I went on a used-toy hunt and stum- bled upon this transistor radio: very small, compact, analog and cheap, with a miniature personal computer shell. It was just begging for me to buy it and transform it into its own unique self. I placed photocells on it for a more natural sense of control of my varia- tions of charge resistance in its circuit board and for more active engagement while playing it. Using photocells makes my interac- tion with the instrument more fun for the audience and me. It looks more as if I am playing a drum than just con- centrating on a controller that no one can understand. For high-frequency chirps I added a nickel and connected it to a spot on the radio’s circuit board. When I touch the nickel, my body creates the resistance necessary for reaching insect-like high pitches. While

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I play with those high frequencies I two GE-7 equalizer pedals and smiled, single element of the entire instrument have also added the option for sudden so I immediately stole the idea. He is silence at one switch). I wired only change in tone by adding a button that could change the character of a sound to the left channel of the stereo pairs. raises the pitch a little more and a knob fundamentally and yet retain its essence. Thus, I send a mono signal to up to five that changes the timbre slightly; this It was possible for him to use a very outputs. last knob was not really necessary, but I limited amount of source materials and For the array itself I remove speaker got carried away with the hack. Add to yet present a full complement of sounds drivers from their cabinetry and place those the tuner that allows me to use that were highly integrated with each them directly on the floor. I like the radio signals to modulate almost any of other. immediate visual presence of the driv- the instrument’s output or to add ran- I form nonlinear patterns on the ers and feel more connected to the dom sound bites, and the volume knob, seven bands of the GE-7. I most often sounds they are making as I see them which now also works as its own oscilla- opt for spiking a band or two while vibrate and pulse. I choose individual tion-distortion controller. As a result, I allowing the rest to hover low. The goal speakers for their idiosyncratic charac- now have added to my collection of is to allow parts of sounds to become teristics and aim to form an ensemble circuit-bent toys and hacked transistor more immediately visible, as in macro- of complementary voices. Each speaker radios an instrument with numerous photography. The bypass switch is must realize the signal in a profoundly charismatic noisy phrases. essential—I favor distinct sounds and individualized manner from the stand- The compu-radio appears on Rotted thus rarely adjust the unit while the point of “natural” E.Q. The most valued Orange’s debut recording [1]. circuit is active in the signal path. ones are damaged in such a way as to My interest in building a flexible add a further characteristic acoustic Reference speaker array was inspired by an art- quality to the sound—a rattle or buzz work by Jess Goddard that involved that comes from fatigue or accumu- 1. See . switching between several near- lated abuse. These direct tonal filters César Dávila-Irizarry is a sound artist who identical speakers that had been (the last in the signal line) provide works on sound art installations, sound de- either filled with plaster, smeared extreme immediacy to the sounds they sign for animation, film and video. He also with epoxy or treated in a similar produce. There is no effect box or creates electroacoustic and musique concrète extreme way. I enjoyed being surprised modeling device attempting to simulate pieces. He received a bachelor of fine arts de- at the unpredictable and widely differ- something known and certainly no gree with an emphasis on sound from the ent tones of each speaker. These were default “clean” setting. School of the Art Institute of Chicago. singular tones; I could not imagine I choose to be constantly blindsided sounds with that degree of character by sounds that, were they available as and presence coming from a hi-fi. samples or presets, I likely would not HE OSS T B GE-7 E.Q. When I built my speaker array to use elect to use at a given moment. When AND FLEXIBLE SPEAKER in performance I bought a ready-made I select speakers or blindly adjust the ARRAY AS TONAL FILTERS switch with five selector buttons that E.Q. I am almost always genuinely Vic Rawlings. E-mail: . of speakers at a time. I added a master know what the result of a given action on-off switch (the most important will be, it is already present in the com- Sound examples related to this article are available at . Fig. 9. The entire instrument (circuits, switches, speaker array), from the player’s perspec- tive. (Photo © Vic Rawlings) The speaker switch is the large white box to the right. The GE-7 The most crucial element of what is located in the lower center of the morass of exposed circuitry (its foot pedal has been sounds I present is tone. Tonal filtra- removed to provide direct access to the bypass switch). tion is the only sort of signal process- ing I am interested in, because it leaves no residue on the source signal and is also effective at revealing unexpected aspects of that signal. The source mate- rials I use are pure cracked electronic squeal, with a harsh, immediate and unpredictable character that I do not want to smooth over. My use of a flexi- ble (easily interchangeable) speaker array (a series of tonal filters), coupled with extreme use of a Boss GE-7 Equal- izer (E.Q.) (Fig. 9), serves to expand the tonal characteristics and composi- tional relevance of my source material, so that I can use fewer source sounds. There is also an indeterminate aspect to the source material that is height- ened by the indeterminate aspects of the tonal filters. When I asked Gunter Muller what made his rig work, he pointed to his

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position. These tonal filters, by virtue of their volatility, enhance the dynamic aspect of the music.

Vic Rawlings performs and teaches music in the Boston area. He is a member of the BSC (an 8-member improvising ensemble based in Boston) and has performed and recorded throughout the U.S.A. and Europe with Boston-based improvisers such as Greg Kelley, Bhob Rainey, Michael Bullock, Howard Stelzer, Liz Tonne, James Coleman, Chris Cooper and Tim Feeney as well as out-of-towners Jason Lescalleet, Laurence Cook, Sean Meehan, Tat- suya Nakatani, Ricardo Arias, Mazen Kerbaj, Nate Wooley and many others. His music can be heard on labels such as Grob, Sedimental, RRRecords, Absurd, Al Maslakh, Boxmedia, Chloe and Audio Dispatch (Free 103.9).

REAL-TIME PROTOTYPING IN LIVE ELECTRONIC MUSIC: A MODULAR CRACKLE INSTRUMENT Fig. 10. The Crackle instrument configured for performance. (Photo © James Fei) James Fei, Music Department, Mills College, 5000 MacArthur Boulevard, Oakland, CA 94613, U.S.A. E-mail: which I studied in college. My first ual speaker-driving outputs as well as a . Web site: thought was to extend the circuit by summed line-level output to interface . bridging two units together. I stretched with the rest of my analog electronics. resistors, capacitors and diodes resting Perhaps having another flashback to During a visit to STEIM, the venerable on the touch pads across the boxes, engineering lab work, I decided to use institute of musical research in Amster- altering circuit values and feeding the a trimmed down breadboard to expose dam, I acquired several Crackle Boxes two amplifiers back into each other. the circuit guts to real-time manipula- (Kraakdoos). This classic device, con- While the sensitivity to touch remained, tion. The breadboard is connected ceived by Michel Waisvisz with the assis- the boxes now possessed an expanded to six points of each Crackle circuit, tance of Geert Hamelberg at STEIM in repertoire and became even more functioning much like the patch bay the mid-1970s, is a model of efficient temperamental. It was also possible to of a recording studio. The circuit can and subversive design. A single op-amp, configure the components’ values to now be altered easily during perform- whose intended purpose is to amplify make noise without intervention by the ance: its routings can be changed and signals accurately, is configured in an hand, the sound shifting over time due multiplied; it can even receive external unstable state, with its input, output either to instability of the circuit or the signal and control voltage injection. In and compensation pins brought out to components being physically moved by performance, acoustic filtering is pro- six touch pads. The performer interacts the speakers’ vibrations. vided by different speakers connected with the instrument by bridging differ- I gave little more thought to the to each output—high-frequency com- ent points in the circuit with one’s Crackle Boxes beyond those few after- pression drivers, mini paper cones, hands, eliciting noises that are sensitive noons of experimentation until I piezo discs, etc., chosen for their lim- to pressure, sweat and the declining returned to STEIM for a residency in ited bandwidth and other imperfec- health of the 9-volt battery powering it. 2006. After deciding to scrap the project tions. These can also be easily Although built with limited resources— I had initially proposed due to its need positioned at different parts of the the touch pads are simply traces on the for specialized parts, I remembered the performance space to take advantage printed circuit board and the speaker is ideas for a more configurable Crackle of resonant corners and provide some glued on—the Crackle Box is housed in instrument (Fig. 10), which seemed primitive spatialization. an elegant wooden enclosure and suc- appropriate to try out at STEIM. With In my mind, while this instrument ceeds in providing a tactile experience the assistance of Jorgen Brinkman (who obviously owes much to the original where most electronic instruments fail. also assembled every one of the reis- Crackle Box and Waisvisz’s Crackle Despite the unpredictability of the sued Crackle Boxes), the new module Synth, it is also a reduction of David Crackle Box, the range of its behavior was laid out and wired in a few days. Tudor–influenced electronics to is limited, making it wonderful as enter- The design goals of the new unit the component level, manipulating tainment for dinner guests but less were to make it compact, battery pow- frequency compensation cutoffs and useful as a “serious” instrument. After ered and absolutely flexible in routing gain values rather than gain blocks, I peeked under the hood (always the while retaining the tactile interface of phase shifters and filters. Although first thing to do when encountering a the original. I wanted four Crackle the outcome is laced with uncertainty, piece of equipment), the simplicity of circuits that could function independ- the visual simplicity and correspon- the circuit reminded me of textbook ently as well as work in parallel and dence to what lies underneath (i.e. exercises in electrical engineering, feed back into each other, with individ- pad 1 is the output, pad 2 the non-

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inverting input, etc.) gives the musician ones that stay close to the components buffer to avoid shocks . . . no seriously! a visceral clarity that is so elusive on a and exhibit them freely, unboxed. Do it!). Try more than one knife (or laptop. First, The Mixing Bowl. Take a kitchen fork or spoon) to sample from more bowl. Pyrex for choice as it is more than one spot. Throw in a magnet or James Fei is a composer, saxophonist and elec- roadworthy than glass and squeaks two to create lumps of arbitrary cir- tronic musician. He teaches intermedia at nicely when rubbed. Just throw stuff in: cuitry. Perhaps pour in a little hot wax Mills College in Oakland, California. cheap microphones, piezo elements, and leave to set if you especially like guitar pickups, electric motors, vibra- what you have and want to keep it. This THE PRIORITY OF THE tors, maybe some fruit. Connect up, will probably instructively fail: Let COMPONENT, OR IN PRAISE agitate, listen to the mix. The Victorian capricious circuitry forever elude you OF CAPRICIOUS CIRCUITRY Synthesizer is an ongoing project to build and love it for that (moral). a synthesizer using techniques that Another lesson in all this: beyond John Bowers, Departments of Design could have been employed by the Victo- and before the completed circuit lies and Computing, Goldsmiths College, rians if they hadn’t been occupied with the component in all its unruly poten- University of London, New Cross, Lon- other things. This is challenging. For tiality as it awaits connection or gently don SE14 6NW, U.K. E-mail: example, one cannot create an oscilla- decays away. And perhaps: the Good . tor with an amplifier feeding back to Device exists at the threshold of itself with near unity gain as this was order/disorder where components Vanessa Yaremchuk, Biological Compu- post-Victorian—in 1921, by Heinrich reveal themselves once more in provi- tation Project, Department of Psychol- Barkhausen, so a Weimar cultural affair sional constructions of requisite sim- ogy, University of Alberta, Edmonton, in fact [1]. Instead, take a moving coil plicity yet enigma. Alberta, Canada T6G 2P9. E-mail: loudspeaker (Oliver Lodge, 1898, Victo- . rian [2]), connect a battery directly to References its terminals and enjoy the pops and Further material, including sound examples, 1. See A. Corbin, The Third Element: A Brief History of is available at . 2. Corbin [1]. make and break the circuit, placing Before the Ibanez Tube Screamer, the switch on the diaphragm for self- there was the JRC4558 chip. Before the oscillation by Victorian means. Copy Bibliography smooth sound of germanium fuzz, the construction and swap switches for Bowers, J., and Archer, P. “Not Hyper, Not Meta, there had to be germanium, in particu- cross-modulation. Vary freely. Not Cyber but Infra-Instruments,” in Proceedings of New Instruments for Musical Expression 2005 (NIME lar in NKT-275 (“Newmarket”) transis- Let us take these principles further. 05) (Vancouver, Canada 2005). See . circuit bending, there must be circuits, where chance wiring and promiscuous Bowers, J., and Villar, N. “Creating Ad Hoc Instru- and before circuits, components. mixtures of basic components create ments with Pin&Play&Perform,” in Proceedings of New So let your favorite things be components. circuitry before our very eyes and ears. Instruments for Musical Expression 2006 (NIME 06) (Paris, France, 2006). See . and hackable. But let components kitchen bowl with each plate connected Collins, N. “The Celebrated Jumping Speaker of Bow- themselves be your first love. Love the to a low-voltage battery terminal. Pour ers County: Twitching Loudspeakers with Batteries,” Chapter 5 of N. Collins, Handmade Electronic Music: multiplicity of them when you buy in in arbitrary components: resistors, The Art of Hardware Hacking (New York: Routledge, bulk. Love the color codes on resistors. capacitors, transistors, diodes, lengths 2006). Love the varied shapes of capacitors. of bare wire. Sample the current at The bright colors of wire insulation. selected spots of the mixture with a John Bowers is a musician, social scientist and The spikiness of transistors. The sleek conductive knife (or fork or spoon). interaction designer. He has researched foun- lines of ICs. And everyone loves blinky Stir the mixture (or maybe agitate it dational issues in human-computer interac- tion for really quite a while now and is LEDs, especially blue ones. Let us love with a Victorian Synthesizer beneath). co-founder of the Onoma Research record la- components: before they get fixed in Run the circuit from knife blade to bel. Vanessa Yaremchuk is a photographer and circuitry, their potentiality is still intact, whatever you fancy: to serve as a control computing scientist. She researches artificial like the wild children who live in the voltage for synthesis, to be amplified so neural networks and music cognition. Bow- woods. that the electricity through the random ers and Yaremchuk do intermedia work under Let us describe some favorite hacks, circuit can be heard direct (electrically the collective name of Glorrph.

Fig. 11. Components/Ohm-My-God/Components, 2007. (Ohm-My-God © John Bowers. Image triptych © Vanessa Yaremchuk.)

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with it. In Mesoamerican languages, a word was linked both semantically and phonologically to a universe of con- cepts inseparable from the object described. In the case of names used for musical instruments, there was an inseparable connection between the phonetics of the word and a sound the instrument made. Furthermore, for the inhabitants of pre-Colombian Mesoamerica, a “sound object” was more of an entity in itself than an actual producer of musical sounds. The object itself contained the essence of the material with which it was built. While most electronic analog or digital instruments and sonic objects generate sound through speakers, MAIZ is a computer-controlled sonic object that produces physical and mechanical sounds. Every element used in the construc- tion of MAIZ has a personal meaning for me. The process of construction became as important as the realization of the concept. MAIZ grew inside out from found recycled objects. Its con- struction flouts artist Joseph Beuys’s “enlarged conception of art,” which included “every human action” in the process. A heavy metal disk became the cen- ter and starting point of the construc- tion. This rotating disk connects to a powerful servomotor. The disk was remodeled to fit the shaft because the two parts came from completely differ- ent machinery. The disk lies over a set of bearings, thus taking direct weight off of the shaft. MAIZ is built from a wine box, metal parts from a mechani- cal street cleaner (which became the Fig. 12. MAIZ, cybertotemic instrument, 2007. (© Guillermo Galindo. Photo © Alfredo tongues of a kalimba), a cigar box and Alfaro.) my wife’s credit card, which plays three strings (tied to a guitar neck). MAIZ can alternately be triggered by light meaning of sound in relation to its sensors, motion sensors, controllers MAIZ: A CYBERTOTEMIC generating source. or even the human voice. INSTRUMENT In an alternative approach to qualita- The enlargeable sprockets and Guillermo Galindo-gal*in_dog, P.O. tive listening or the “reduced listening” removable aluminum arms around Box 9492, Oakland, CA 94613, U.S.A. proposed by French musique concrète the plate rotate and strike alternate E-mail: . composer Pierre Schaeffer, which sug- series of metallic tongues, depending Web site: . gests mentally removing the sound on the length of each sprocket, at dif- from its originating source, thereby ferent speeds. One of the arms excites MAIZ (Fig. 12) is a kinetic sonic struc- stripping it from any meaning associ- a potentiometer, which sends data back ture made from hybrid recycled indus- ated with it, the idea behind MAIZ to the computer. Each part of the trial materials and found objects and focuses solely on the sound and the instrument can be amplified independ- controlled by computer. MAIZ is a sound’s relationship with the object. ently. MAIZ can be used as an interac- syncretic cybersonic talisman, a hyper- In a search for postcolonial and post- tive independent instrument or as a folkloric object of reconnection. global hybrid art, MAIZ explores pre- live performance device. Aesthetically, MAIZ weds contradic- Colombian ideas in language, art and My piece Post-Colonial Discontinuum, tory Western and Mesoamerican con- religion. In Nahuatl (the language written for MAIZ and chamber ensem- cepts, such as myth and science, faith spoken by the Aztecs), the meaning ble, was commissioned by Earplay and reason, and technology and ani- of a word could not be separated from Ensemble and premiered at San Fran- mism. Conceptually, MAIZ explores the a constellation of concepts associated cisco Herbst Theater in May 2006.

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Acknowledgments a computer, although I do play with screw or nail across the strings, but Thanks to Raul Aguilar, Fernando Hernandez, Don- computer musicians who process its strength and pliability provide a ald Swendingen (control) and Ricardo Rendón for my sound. I never use the electric great dynamic range and enable me technical advice. violin, and my violin is only amplified to spin out entire pieces of music via a clip-on mic at the tailpiece when using only this bow. Wearing metal Guillermo Galindo’s artistic work spans a wide spectrum of expression, from symphonic I am being processed, or sometimes thimbles on my left-hand fingers to composition to the domains of musical and vi- when I play with other amplified musi- make a sharper and more brilliant sual computer interaction, electroacoustic mu- cians. sound with the bow, I produce zips sic, opera, film music, instrument building, The “alternative bows” I use origi- and swishes and belches and plucks three-dimensional installation, performance nate in my work with Jerry Hunt. He and plings normally associated with and sound design. had an “array of bowing devices” for record-scratching and electronic me to use on the “Chimanzzi” track of sounds. Two of my pieces using the his CD Ground (OO discs): three bows arrowbow alone can be heard on my ARROWBOWS, CHIPS that he had made himself—all crude, web site: “Hands Off the Homeless” AND CHIRPS small, fetish-like, made of cheap wood and “Haarlem Hat Dream (Double).” Jane Henry, P.O. Box 90478, San Anto- and “haired” with nylon fishing line. It can also be heard in my improv with nio, TX 78209, U.S.A. E-mail: . Web site: . been enthusiastically using alternative My favorite electronic accessory in bows ever since. As a souvenir, he gave my solo performance wardrobe is truly Sound examples related to this article are me the smallest bow, which I call the wearable. Dubbed the “Chipsaw” (Fig. available at . “tiny bow.” My very favorite, however, 13) by its maker, Sukandar Kartadinata, is the one he called the “grinder,” a during his internship with Nic Collins Since 1990, I have used both acoustic stick approximately 14 in long, tightly at STEIM, it is simply an amplified, hot- and electronic accessories in perform- wound with nylon fishing line. wired musical greeting card microchip ance: a small but colorful assortment of My version of this is called the with an anklet of articulating mercury- “alternative bowing devices” and glori- “arrowbow,” fashioned for me from bead on-off switches and a pressure-pad ously sabotaged simple consumer elec- an actual arrow by friend and com- voltage regulator that I squeeze tronics such as hot-wired chips or VHS poser Sarmad Brody, after my descrip- between my toes. tapes played back on PAL machines. tion of Jerry’s bow. Closer in size (29 It is amazing what a rich palette of Almost everything I do is live, in real in) and weight to an actual violin bow sounds can come from that tiny black time. If I want more sound mass, I use than was the grinder, it is easier for blob once it is open to distortion, pre-recorded material played back on me to use freely. I use this one most released from its chain of monophonic Walkman cassettes, CDs or video play- extensively. Its sound can be compared Christmas tunes, ready for the joys of ers, which I control myself. I never use to that of a guitarist drawing a threaded free improvisation! In performance, I balance on my left foot while squeezing and shaking the apparatus attached to my right foot and toe for 8 minutes or Fig. 13. “Chipsaw,” made by S. Kartadinata, worn and played by violinist Jane Henry, 2007. so, in addition to alternating between (Photo © Todd Johnson) several kinds or bows, making me essen- tially a one-person band. In my violin part, I use pitch, squelch, chirps and rhythmic material dictated by the dis- torted microchip and mix in overdubs of alternate bows and microchip during performance to build a chaotic density, but the lone microchip gets the last word. This exercise in absurdity is my homage to Jerry Hunt, “The Chip Is Down ( Jerry Goes to Glory).” Record- ings of this piece are on my web site, my CD and the CD accompanying The Art of Hardware Hacking by Nic Collins.

Jane Henry is a violinist and composer/im- proviser currently based in San Antonio, Texas, after 2 decades of residence in New York City and Holland. Classically trained, she is active as a violin teacher and freelance vio- linist with symphony and baroque orchestras. Her solo CD AutoViographie presents her work for violin and electronics. She has con- tributed to CDs by Michael Schumacher, Matt Rogalsky, Jerry Hunt and Rafael Toral. Her work is also cited in recent books on new mu- sic by Elizabeth Hinkle and Nic Collins.

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ratio of the strings’ diameter deter- vators, facilitating string stunts without FORMER GUITARS mines the interval at rest (equal length the intention to create 12-tone music. AND COCOLINAS and tension). Former guitars have something in com- Neil Feather, 2412 Crest Road, Former guitars also have a movable mon with an obscure single-string-and- Baltimore, MD 21209, U.S.A. “bridge” that acts as a big fret for ham- lever instrument that some early Foley E-mail: . mer-on and other techniques specific artists used to make a boing sound. A Web site: . to the instrument. Grooves have been direct influence is the Crychord, which filed into the bridge to facilitate a faux- is part of the Harry Partch orchestra, if Sound examples related to this article are bowing technique of rubbing the string not actually designed by Partch. Former available at . across the bridge. Pickups are mounted guitars are excellent for producing on both sides of the bridge so that all boings, glissandos, caterwauling and Since 1972 I have created an ensemble of the string can sound. The movable other sounds spelled out in Don Martin of instruments that fall roughly into bridge creates an adjustable ratio cartoons. six families, according to the principle between the string length above the My latest instrument is the Cocolina. they are designed to explore. These bridge and the string length below it. It is the second former guitar design principles are mainly the following: These two lengths change but always intended for multiple production. My inverse pitch relationships, rotary have the same sum. This tonal constant, tendency is to overbuild my instru- motion, magnetism, mechanical phase along with the symmetry created by ments; instead, I designed the Cocolina relationships, string physics and sonic shared string tension, mechanically to be light, simple, economical and transduction. The instruments are enforces a symmetry that rotates on open ended. Compared to the first electroacoustic or electromagnetic two axes. This set up was designed to former guitar production model, the and use strings and/or small motors imitate the pitch dynamic of my earlier Guitaint, it is half the weight (4 lbs) and for vibration. They are utilitarian, finely instrument the Nondo. The Nondo is requires half the cost and half the num- adjustable, ergonomic devices that a steel sheet that is strung lengthwise ber of parts. Its design is rectilinear, as respond to experimentation and tech- by two strings into a rocking curve. The opposed to the curvaceousness of the nique with a rich spectrum of sound. string tension is created by the weight other former guitars. It also features a This statement focuses on the “for- of the heavy flexible sheet. The Nondo mounting bar from an electric panel mer guitar” family and its newest mem- is played by tilting so that round metal that allows prongs or tines or springs ber, the Cocolina (Fig. 14). The former bars roll along the widely spaced to be mounted near the pickups. These guitar family was begun in 1980, when strings. The Nondo’s pitch distribution additions expand and enhance the I successfully decontextualized a Silver- is controlled by physical balance. musical possibilities. tone electric guitar. The first few former Former guitars are the most versatile The Cocolina is my new favorite ax. guitars were converted guitars. The sub- of my instruments and are most often It has a full former guitar sound and sequent former guitars were made from used in the context of free improvisa- produces bonus sounds as well, includ- scratch using guitar parts, hardware, tion. The former guitar is also the ing one of my best boings yet. It is aluminum and high-density plastics. instrument of choice of the dozen or meant to be reproduced and played Former guitars have two strings that so players who have seriously pursued by others. I have long since built more share tension through a “head” that playing my instruments and have been instruments than I can practice on and pivots under the control of a long involved in my ensembles, which fea- would like these experiments to extend whammy bar. This configuration causes ture only unique instruments. They beyond my own imagination. The one string to tighten as the other is add to the sound palette originated by Cocolina can satisfy the serious former loosened, creating a tonal center. The certain modern (table-top) guitar inno- guitar player and intrigue collectors and users of unique instruments.

Neil Feather has invented, built and per- Fig. 14. Guitaint and two Cocolinas, 2007. (Photo © Neil Feather) Their lengths are 33, 33 formed on experimental musical instruments and 25 inches, respectively. for 35 years. He is a member of the Baltimore, MD, Red Room Collective and the High Zero Foundation, which have presented improvised and experimental music for many years. His musical groups include THUS, Aerotrain and Mugwump.

THE G&L SC-1: OBSCURE OBJECT OF SONIC DESIRE Robert Poss, 172 East 4th Street #11D, New York, NY 10009, U.S.A. E-mail: . Web site: .

Sound examples related to this article are available at .

My discovery of the G&L SC-1 (Fig. 15) coincided with a fundamental shift in

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my musical thinking. Playing in Rhys strident nor dull, and its overtones the double-cutaway Gibson Les Paul Chatham’s guitar ensemble had solidi- sang. It felt right and sounded right Jr. and with vintage Gretsch hollow fied my interest in what might be called and looked right to me. I was in love. bodies. Whereas my relationships with ecstatic guitar minimalism. I had devel- This guitar changed everything. I other guitars had been temporary, my oped an interest in electronic and soon gave up my then guitar of choice, crush on the SC-1 blossomed into a experimental music in the 1970s under a Fender Jazzmaster, and elevated the romance and deepened into an obses- the tutelage of Susan Stenger and Nico- SC-1 to the Number 1 spot. The place- sion. It became a muse and a touch- las Collins. In the mid-1980s I had ment and design of the single G&L stone, an inspiration and a musical begun to formulate a musical vision Magnetic Field Design pickup was partner. Over the years, I have bought based on what I saw as the great unlike anything I had ever experienced and sold dozens of electric guitars, but moments of rock. These were bits of on a guitar. I found the SC-1’s ability to the SC-1 stands alone. For me, it is feedback heard in a certain song, a sustain controlled feedback inspiring totemic; I consider it sacred. chord sustained in a certain manner, a and energizing. I developed a tech- As I acquired more SC-1s, its pick- certain brief juxtaposition of two clash- nique that enabled me to precisely guard-less design began to strike me as ing rhythm-guitar parts—moments that control the overtones that fed back, just a bit too modern, too Spartan. One were for me a distillation of everything giving me an almost magical power to night it occurred to me that I could add that I loved about guitar-based popular shift my body a few degrees and have a pickguard similar in design to one music. With the formation of my wall- the pitches jump by an octave or per- found on my Les Paul Jr. guitars; I of-electric-guitars group Band of fect fifth. I could almost see the pitches thought of the SC-1 as a Fender variant Susans, I attempted to develop a musi- in the air; the instrument became a of the single-pickup “student model” cal vocabulary based solely on these theremin-like divining rod as I dowsed Les Paul Jr. An artistically inclined moments, focusing on the textures and for the perfect overtone. I saw this as friend helped me sketch out a design, architectures of layered, distorted gui- the ideal confluence of my interests in and I had a few pickguards profession- tars rather than the conventions and the worlds of experimental rock and ally cut and affixed them to my SC-1s. clichés of riff- and melody-driven the pure sonic architectures of Phill The instrument suddenly looked music. Niblock and Alvin Lucier. I found “right” to me and it was finally my own: On the lookout for a new, cheap, myself listening to the way the SC-1 my trademark, my signature model. sturdy guitar to use with Chatham’s responded to various arcane chains of This modification was purely aesthetic, group and in my own work, I saw a distortion pedals. I found inspiration although I like to think of it as an guitar I had never seen before in a in the specific series and balance of enhancement to the vestment in a small music store on St. Mark’s Place. the overtones I coaxed from it. All this personal iconography. It was extraordinarily simple and very found its way into Band of Susans’ core The metonymic significance of my inexpensive, and when I played it, I material. SC-1 reached its zenith when the guitar decided to purchase it immediately. Prior to discovering the SC-1, I had was used as the central design motif for Even mass-produced guitars have their practiced serial guitar monogamy. My Band of Susans’ Love Agenda, The Word own idiosyncrasies of sound and feel. first oddball guitar was a 1950s National and The Flesh and Peel Sessions CDs. Our The wood, hardware, wire and plastic Town & Country; no else I knew used record company sent a poster to G&L, inevitably combine into something that the model. I subsequently became and while on tour in California, we is inscrutably more than the sum of the obsessed with the Gibson Les Paul learned that we had been invited to the parts. I had bought and sold dozens Deluxe—one of the least popular of G&L factory to meet the legendary Leo of guitars, from pawnshop specials to the Les Pauls. I next was enchanted by Fender, co-founder of the company. For blue-chip vintage models, but the SC-1 was in a class by itself. It balanced per- fectly. Its intonation and stability were Fig. 15. The author’s favorite guitar, the G&L SC-1. (Photo © Robert Poss) unsurpassed, and no one I knew had ever seen or played one before. This guitar had a faded baby blue (Viking Blue, as I believe it was called by the company) coloring, with a tincture of turquoise visible at the worn spots. Its blond maple neck provided an organic counterpart to the automobile-like modernity of the unadorned spray- painted body. There was a perfection of tonal balance, compact physicality and understated physique. Rather than a display of overtly phallic horns, geo- metric protrusions or futurist planes, the SC-1’s gentle silhouette is almost Noguchi-like in its modesty. The guitar struck me as somewhat shy and diminu- tive and seemed to invite one to cradle it, to caress, to nurture; I felt that the instrument reciprocated. It had a per- fect balance of bass and treble, neither

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me, this was no less than an audience I fell for the Casio Sk1 (Fig. 16). I At first this was annoying and disap- with the Creator. We toured the factory, bought it with money saved up from pointing. After a while I realized that and Fender and his longtime colleague my allowance and a birthday. It soon I could plug the keyboard in at full Dale Hyatt took us out to lunch. It was became clear that it had a lot more power and sample one of those odd a triumphant moment: There on the going for it with its limitations and mutants, providing a sound palette to factory wall was our Love Agenda poster, weird quirks than was suggested by manipulate. This was an exciting early a pinup photograph by filmmaker Beth the presets. This thrilled me to no end taste of something like circuit bending. B that featured Susan Stenger lying and inspired hours of experimenting. I learned to see sound in shapes, serra- languidly next to my beloved SC-1 in The drum set was tinny, so I learned to tions, edges, color forms and their what might be seen as a post-coital sample my breath to make bass, snare recombinations. repose. and hi-hat loops like a Roland TR 808 Television shows such as “Dynasty” Although they were interested in or TR 909 (the drum machines that and “Dallas” and infomercials provided having me try some of their current brought bottom-end bass to electronic arrays of sounds to utilize, from voices models, I told them of my singular, music) with even a bit of distortion and to layers and percussion. Monotone obsessive interest in the discontinued tiny fills. I also became really interested voices or voices with odd modulations SC-1, their least expensive and least in sampling the voices of AM radio (e.g. bad public-access cable hosts) successful instrument. Subsequently, newscasters in their weird polarity of could be used for bass on low keys, Hyatt had the factory run a limited speaking either really excitedly or in snares in the middle range and cymbals reissue of three of that model in custom a morose deadpan worthy of funeral and quirky little accents on the high colors—the rarest G&Ls ever produced directors in old movies. I once acciden- end. An ad for a truck-driving school —and he gave them to me. I have never tally sampled static as a station signal aired one night at 3 AM yielded the been prouder. wavered. It was amazing. It somehow most amazing drum and string sample Robert Poss has performed and recorded with played back as a lush string sound! I I have ever heard. The samples could Rhys Chatham, Phill Niblock, David Dramm, learned with practice that the Sk1 only be a few seconds long, so they had Nicolas Collins, Ben Neill and Bruce Gilbert. could capture static with a distortion to pack a lot of elements or something In 1986, he formed Band of Susans, which at a certain tone and signal range that really odd and rich. It surely must have went on to release two EPs and five LPs (all it translated sonically into something sounded quite insane to my parents, produced by Poss) before disbanding in 1995. quite rich. when in the middle of the night they In 2002 he released two companion solo CDs, The Sk1 recorded in two channels. would hear the television play odd late- Distortion Is Truth and Crossing Casco If I played with the presets in record night detritus with massive 10-second Bay, on Trace Elements Records. He is cur- mode, it created a sort of odd semi- spikes in volume at odd intervals. rently working with choreographers Alexan- arpeggio, with a fluidity between short I lost my Sk1 years ago when it was dra Beller and Sally Gross and continues to perform his guitar and electronics pieces in the notes as opposed to the normal sustain. taken apart by a bandmate. He replaced U.S.A., the U.K. and Europe. It was great for playing fast and work- it, but it somehow was not the same, ing with scales. The batteries would and I began to experiment with other die out pretty quickly, however—the tools. I now create works such as a recent SOUND SHAPES, DRUMMING sound would begin from its pristine one composed of interacting architec- INFOMERCIALS AND THE little presets and samples to slide into tures of sound fragments composed to WONDERS OF THE CASIO SK1 mutated distortion, spastic burps, elec- the edits in an MRI brain scan [1]. Jeremy Hight, 4232 Fair Ave #12, Studio tronic fuzz and a sort of sandpaper I owe so much to that little keyboard City, CA 91602, U.S.A. E-mail: static undertone. with the yellow record button. . Reference I could finally afford it—that pretty Fig. 16. Sound Form (tribute to the Sk1), 2007. (© Jeremy Hight) 1. See . As a boy of 14, I dreamed of mounted racks of analogs, with an insane pea- Jeremy Hight is a sound artist/electronic mu- cock-hued spaghetti of patch cords in sician/new media artist. His sound work the backs and a warm buttery sound. has appeared in several international festi- I imagined veritable landscapes vals and museums. of sliders, touch-sensitive strips, fields of knobs and a long line of drum machines and real drums to mic up LOVID’S KISS BLINK and record. I became more realistic SYNC VESSEL after a while and just hoped for some- Kyle Lapidus and Tali Hinkis, 275 W. thing I could afford.I had already out 96th Street, #23C, New York, NY 10025, of necessity learned how to record my U.S.A. E-mail: . drumming on the turntable of an old Web site: . Sears stereo while I recorded on its built-in tape deck and taped it to prac- Sound examples related to this article are tice and to play with various feels and available at . song on those little toy keyboards that companies gave away as paperweights, Our video recordings and perform- as well as a Speak & Spell. ances are abstract audiovisual composi-

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Fig. 17. LoVid, Sync Armonica, 2005–2006. (Photo © LoVid) Clock- wise from top left: detail of VCO module from Sync Armonica; Sync Armonica on display at Eyebeam, New York City, 2005; installation of Sync Armonica at Digital Salon, New York City, 2006; detail of bottom side of modules.

tions converting electricity into intense including VCAs, VCOs, VCFs, LFOs, boxes. In this version, many of the patterns of color and noise in which envelope generators, sample-and-holds connections between the different image and sound are created as one and a video-specific sync generator and modules are made using switches rather entity—the video is audible and the encoder. than exclusively through cables. sound visible. As a result, our perform- The modules are encased in clear On the faces of the boxes are draw- ances are experienced physically and acrylic tubes, which are placed inside ings of a monkey and a dragon, draw- viscerally as enveloping and engaging holes in a custom-made 2-x-9-x-4-ft ing inspiration from medieval coats environments. Exploring this tactile table. The top of each module is etched of arms based on visual symbols and relationship with media as well as our with a drawing based on video stills codes that retell family stories. own bodies’ physical relationships with from recordings of the instrument’s Glome Mountain is an installation in our instruments, we create sculptural output as well as graphic signs forming which our AV synthesizer expands into analog hardware synthesizers. Our a legend for each of the inputs/out- a room-sized object. The piece was sculptural instruments elicit a cross- puts. The name Sync Armonica reflects created for Lumen’s Evolution Festival generational dialog with early experi- an analogy between the flow of water in Leeds, U.K. During a 2-day work- mentation in image processing by video and the flow of electricity, as it is shop, students participated in the sol- artists/engineer pioneers as well as inspired by Glass Harps or Glass dering of the different components with current aesthetic pursuits within Armonicas—glass cups of water that and boards, which were then mounted DIY and hacker culture among our are rubbed with the fingertips to pro- on a 7-x-7-x-6-ft cardboard structure. contemporaries. We are interested in duce tones. Because of the modular The piece was designed as an inside- the evolution of media and the differ- nature of this instrument, each compo- out video synthesizer inspired by four- ent goals and pursuits of these two eras. sition is created within a patch; a pat- dimensional mathematics and built to Kiss Blink Sync Vessel developed from tern of interconnections between the be played from the inside while project- 1 these interests and influences. It is a different modules made using ⁄4-in ing sound and image outside into the group of sculptural custom AV synthe- cables. The technical construction of performance room. At the end of the sizers. Peeking into a parallel world the patch becomes a central element workshop the students themselves where media is tangible and emotional, of the work. We use the mass of colorful performed from within the instrument. the synthesizers materialize our fascina- cables as an aesthetic element in the tion with the tension between wireless physical presence of the instruments Note and wirefull, hi-tech and lo-fi, hand- and develop visual scores for each 1. Inverted H-Barn, a new piece based on modules from made and machine produced [1]. piece. Other recent work from this Kiss Blink Sync Vessel, was shown at the Neuberger Mu- We began this body of work during series develops the patch composition seum in Purchase, NY, 11 February–20 May 2007. a residency at Eyebeam in 2005, with into circuit-composition works, where the support of the Experimental TV the connections are done internally LoVid is the interdisciplinary artist duo of Tali Hinkis and Kyle Lapidus. LoVid’s work Center’s Finishing Funds. within an electronic circuit that is hard- includes live video installations, sculptures, Sync Armonica (Fig. 17) was designed wired to produce its particular output. digital prints, patchworks, web projects, per- as a modular instrument for us to use in Coat of Embrace is a portable, wearable formances and video recordings. LoVid ex- performances, recordings and installa- handmade AV synthesizer. Modules plores the translation, decay and preservation tions. The instrument has 28 multipur- similar to those used in Sync Armonica of natural, electrical and biological signals pose modules for sound and video, were installed inside two 24-x-24-x-6-in through time and memory.

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is still possible to have that feedback, controlling the volume with the lid has become almost impossible.) Another piece from this series, electro- viola (2001), explores the viola-like qualities of an old Pismo by bowing on its lid, where the built-in microphone is sitting. The picked-up frictions control the bowing aspects of a viola’s physical model. The title is a reference to the piece violectra by my teacher Johannes Fritsch, who played the “electrified viola” in Stockhausen’s ensemble. Of course this approach to comput- ers as musical instruments has its dis- advantages: Each piece requires its dedicated machine, and I can therefore sometimes find myself traveling with three different generations of Power- books. However, since it seems com- paratively easy to tap into a recent Powerbook’s sudden-motion sensor, keyboard-backlight sensor or fan- spinning speed control (as has been done successfully by others), there is Fig. 18. Video still from bandoneonbook, 2005. (Video still © Bettina Wenzel) still something left to explore, money permitting. hans w. koch (mostly) lives in Cologne as a MSP as well, my question was reshaped: COMPUTERS AS MUSICAL freelance composer and sound artist. In ad- Is it possible to find—besides clock NSTRUMENTS ROM dition to creating open musical forms for var- I ? F speed, CPU power, bit depth, etc.— COMPUTERMUSIC EXPLODED ious ensembles, often interdisciplinary and I < something specific to a certain machine incorporating live electronics, he develops VIEW> TO BANDONEONBOOK that can pass as an instrumental quality (sound) installations, some in mixed media. hans w. koch, Im Krahnenhof 11, for that model, similar to how, for Often the search for hidden aspects of every- D-50668, Cologne, Germany. example, even the cheapest plastic day tools leads to sounds and musical struc- E-mail: . recorders are different from one tures. This also extends to the use of computers Web site: . another? as musical instruments in a rather physical manner. In the spring 2007 semester he taught My research turned to hardware- as visiting professor of composition and ex- A video example related to this article is specific aspects of Powerbooks, which perimental sound practices at CalArts, near available at . began articulating these aspects with the help of patches and interfaces. Now that so much of today’s music is For example, when Apple intro- TRANSITION OF AN produced at every level with the assis- duced the Titanium Powerbook series INSTRUMENT: THE AEO tance of computers, a title like the in 2001, the heralded advance came SOUND PERFORMANCE above seems rather old fashioned. with a very special design flaw: The PROJECT However, when I started working with built-in microphone that sat directly Kazuhiro Jo, Research Center for computers in 1996, I could not help next to the left speaker began merrily Advanced Science and Technology, asking myself whether the sound actu- feedbacking as soon as one tried to use University of Tokyo, 4-6-1 Komaba, ally came from the computer hardware both. Meguro, Tokyo, 153-8904, Japan. producing the music or rather resulted My piece bandoneonbook (2003) E-mail address: . from the software running in it. (Fig. 18) builds upon that feedback My first attempt at clarification and makes it playable with the help Video examples related to this article are resulted in my opening up that black of a Maxpatch. Two parallel filter lines, available. See the references section. box (actually mostly rather gray), controlled by the keyboard, allow for attaching thin audio wires to the legs an almost independent two-voice poly- aeo is a sound performance project of the circuitry and diving into the phony while opening and closing the consisting of three members: Eye, world of hums, chirps, clicks and sud- lid influences the dynamics and the Taeji Sawai and myself [1]. aeo has den bursts emanating from the mother- timbral quality of the sound. The result- performed at several international board. I called the result computermusic ing instrument is perhaps not ideal for festivals [2]. Each member takes I (1996) and did not making people tango but has a rather one of three roles: in this project, care that the process was lethal to the intimate sound, suited for soft and performer (Eye), sound designer machine. etheric moments. (In the later Alu- (Sawai) and instrument designer Later, when I started to appreciate minum series, Apple corrected the (me). During aeo performances, working with software such as Max/ microphone placement, and while it the performer holds the instrument

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Fig. 19. (top left) 1st iteration; (top center) 2nd iteration; (top right) 3rd iteration; (bottom, left and right) 4th iteration. (Photos © Kazuhiro Jo)

in one hand and sways or shakes or arranged in series, and the switch of the switch was embedded into the swings it. These motions by the per- allowed the performer to choose the sphere to prevent its dropping out former produce patterns of sound pattern with this switch. The performer during performance. The sphere was and light. also could use the switch to control the made semitranslucent to show the color The instrument consists of two sets timing of changes in the sound patterns of the bulb. The caps of the switch and of hand-held plastic spheres, a con- manually during the performance. the connector of the cable were col- verter and software. Each sphere con- In the third iteration, two more orized to differentiate each sphere. tains a two-axis accelerometer, which switches were added for each sphere. In each iteration, the software was converts the inclination and accelera- The patterns of sound were independ- also modified to correspond to the tion of each sphere into changes in ently arranged in series for each sphere, changes in the switches, bulbs and analog voltage. Each sphere is con- and the performer could adjust the converters. nected to the converter with a cable. sound patterns with these switches. In Through the four iterations, I tried The converter provides the power for this iteration, the instrument trans- to make the instrument act not only as the accelerometers and converts the formed the performer’s motions not a tool that the performer uses to play changes of voltage into signals. The only into sound but also into light. A sound but also an object that presents software maps the signals onto sound small bulb was added to each sphere; a combination of motion and sound to parameters. The instrument has under- the brightness of the bulb did not cor- the audience. Although it is difficult to gone a transition in function and form respond directly to the signal from divide function and form, I aimed for a over four iterations (Fig. 19). I describe the accelerometer but instead corre- balance between the two. As a result, I here the instrument’s enduring fea- sponded to the amplitude of the sound. added and removed switches, added tures and its transition over four itera- To provide high-current Pulse Width bulbs and changed the color, converter tions with respect to its switches, bulbs, Modulation (PWM) for control of the model and software of the instrument. color, converter and software. brightness of the bulb, the converter It may be helpful to consider the design In the first iteration, in accordance model was changed from I-Cube X to of physical objects in music and sound with the progress of the performance, Makingthings Teleo. art not only at the point of initial cre- the sound designer controlled the In the fourth iteration, one switch ation but also continuously through sound patterns. was removed from each sphere. The various transitions [3]. In the second iteration, a switch sound patterns for each sphere were was added to one sphere, enabling combined and arranged in series. The References the performer to control the sound performer could adjust the sound 1. Each member works on other artistic projects: Eye patterns. The sound patterns were patterns with these switches. The cap is a member of Boredoms ;

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Taeji Sawai’s work can be seen at ; I disruption in the history and philoso- tion of the piano and the activities work with The SINE WAVE ORCHESTRA . phy of musical interaction. This was associated with it: reading and simulta- 2. For example, The Evening of Yukiko Shikata: Enig- an invention that made virtuosic per- neous hand movement. Resembling a maAnagma, DEAF 04, . formance available in some way to any writing desk, it invites visitors in an 3. See also the following videos: 1st iteration: eye’s household that could afford it, but at exhibition setting to sit and read the balls in 2k5, the expense of the flexibility and text, using a slow and patient rotation ; 3rd iteration: aaaaaaaeeeeOsaka! provide. The steel sculpture Player excerpt from the writing: ; 4th Piano symbolized a desire to sustain iteration (with Boredoms): immediate contact with musical objects The piano addresses the sense of imme- diate touch. Here I feel the physicality , . the hand that cannot be controlled or performer. It was influenced by hand- penetrated until the rest ends. This Kazuhiro Jo is a Ph.D. student of Knowledge cranked barrel organs and elements of breathing space splits the unity of the piano design: the fully symmetrical, two hands; they become equally enti- Interaction Design laboratory at RCAST, Uni- tled. . . . They create an argument for versity of Tokyo. He is also a member of The balanced sitting posture, the frontal primacy. SINE WAVE ORCHESTRA, a co-organizer of presentation of the paper roll, and the dorkbot Tokyo integration of organic linear patterns This text is an interpretation of J.S. and a member of the Monalisa project . shape. Handwritten text on a vintage treated equally, and every note is given piano roll of Franz Liszt’s Liebestraum a separate impulse. This is essential to discusses the physical demands of per- counterpoint, reflected in the composi- THE TRANSFIGURED formance and the possibility of injury, tion and in the use of the hands. INSTRUMENT: PLAYER PIANO as well as Heinrich Heine’s account of The Romantic melancholy evoked by Laura Emelianoff, School of the Art one of Liszt’s recitals. Liszt was known the sculpture, the industrial building Institute of Chicago, 280 S. Columbus for having defined the modern concept material and the exaggerated prose Drive, Chicago, IL, 60603, U.S.A. of the virtuoso, through his physically reflect an extended period of time E-mail: . and technically demanding music. when the trajectory of technological My work in the plastic arts strives for advance and the effects of urbanization Although it was certainly not the first an interpretation not resting solely on came into conflict with sociological automated instrument, the player piano verbal dialogue but also on kinesthetic concerns. Now, more than ever, there was one of the first to become commer- and emotional responses in the viewer. exists the question of whether the cially available and created a significant Player Piano (Fig. 20) is a transfigura- organic person will continue to func- tion during such rapid development. This pattern of transformation, how- ever, is dialogic: the instrument modi- fies the performer’s bearing, general Fig. 20. Laura Emelianoff, Player Piano, body use, reflexes and mannerisms. mild steel, paper roll, Most Western instruments were no chemical patina, 2004. longer objects of substantial experi- (Photo © Laura mentation by the 19th century. Piano Emelianoff) makers, however, made a significant structural advance with the introduc- tion of the internal cast-iron frame in the 1820s. The instrument itself was then more capable, with an expanded keyboard, creating a higher demand on the performer. Many recognize that expert perform- ance relies largely on kinesthetic sensa- tions, or muscle memory, and less on aurally perceived information. Yet what is lacking, not only in the general public, but in specialized musical prac- tice as well, is a developed and analyti- cal understanding of proprioception (internal feelings of muscular contrac- tion or expansion, balance and weight distribution). The reciprocal, upward pressure from the piano key as the action returns to its resting position points to the mechanical behavior of the instrument as well as the oppo- site force supplied by the player. Physically active interfaces create a

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perceptual unity, a reciprocal transmis- processes, among them James Gleick’s sion of movement and vibration in the Chaos and Brian Eno’s Year with Swollen auditory or extra-auditory range. Appendices, in which he writes about Through this unity, a “vital touch” can Steve Reich’s early tape works and his be achieved. It is correct to approach own “Generative Music.” music study by addressing the player’s I thought that such processes—the physical apparatus, just as it is impor- overlapping of several simple elements tant to understand the behavior of the to achieve complexity—would be an oral and nasal cavities while learning a excellent way to actually incorporate new language. The body is a medium chance, or at least perceived chance, of music. In fact, almost all instruments into my own artwork, rather than just are built to a human measure, centered symbolizing it—and it was only a matter on the human hearing range and bod- of combining simple mechanical sys- ily proportions. tems rather than designing new, com- New interfaces, acoustic or plex machines. electronic, disrupt familiar notions of I began using these systems in two musical interaction; yet this provides a visually oriented pieces, Mandala #2 possibility for critical dialogue on the (2000) and Haiku Machine (2002). In concept of sensorial unity. I would like Mandala #2, 16 dice, arranged in a grid to continue developing greater physio- under a bell jar, all roll at different logical literacy and aesthetic grounding speeds, powered by one motor hidden for the advancement of musical prac- under the base (see cover of this issue tice, especially in the context of the of LMJ). Due to my use of unusual gear potentially dissociative effects of emerg- ratios (say, 1:1.7, rather than 1:2) in the Fig. 21. Randomized Red Piano, 2005. (© Marc Berghaus. Photo © Doug Koch.) ing technologies. This new direction gears that connect the drive shafts to may even come from examples so bur- the dice’s axles, very few of the cycles dened with history as the piano. line up again at once, and it becomes impossible to predict the patterns of all new installations using digital random- Laura Emelianoff is a metal sculptor and clas- the tumbling dice, despite the fact izers, I do have two more mechanized sically trained pianist. She builds unique that all actual randomness has been pieces in the works. Crawling Clavichord acoustic instruments and sonic electro- stripped from them. Haiku Machine is a slow-moving “cart” of 20 piano mechanical systems; currently she is design- works in a similar way, but uses three hammers from a salvaged piano, semi- ing resonant steel structures based on randomly striking a row of 20 wires harmonic proportions. rows of motorized paper spools, each with six words printed around them, strung tightly across a gallery. The constantly rolling at different speeds. cart travels along on sprocket chains Six words per spool times nine spools strung on either side of the wires, IMULATED HANCE S C produces 10,077,696 haiku. and the wires have guitar pickups and AND STAGGERED For my first sound sculpture, I amplifiers on both ends. As the motor- GEAR RATIOS decided to use these same methods ized cart slowly crosses the room, the Marc Berghaus, P.O. Box 838, again. Randomized Red Piano (2005) tones and overtones on each side of Meade, KS 67864, U.S.A. (Fig. 21) is a tiny, worn toy piano, which the cart’s hammers change. The cart E-mail: <[email protected]>. I mounted atop a tall tower to fetishize then reverses itself after bumping into Web site: . it to a degree. It has 10 keys, all produc- either wall. ing miserably tinny sounds. In the base, My other staggered gear piece is Sound examples and images related to this four motors turn 10 small crankshafts, titled Randomized Gregorian Piano and article are available at . raise the long “pull-rods” that latch However, this machine is designed to onto spring-powered levers at the top, be installed onto the keys of an already One of my primary artistic activities which when released strike the keys. existing grand piano in the gallery has long been to create mechanical The gear ratios for this piece were space (a converted church), and representations of chance, to try to chosen to be truly randomizing. The instead of each gear playing an individ- capture the incredibly complex non- drive shaft gears have either 21 or 23 ual note, every octave on the keyboard linearity of the world around us using teeth, while the crankshaft gears, with has its own little machine that repeats only very linear, 19th-century, Newton- which they mesh, all have even num- snippets of melody, each at a slightly ian technology—brass gears, motors, bers of teeth. This produces such ratios different speed. These snippets of hand-built crankshafts. as 1:1.391, 1:1.417, 1:1.714 . . . Since the melody are taken from old Gregorian My artwork has always been con- motors turn at a slow 1 rpm, it will take chants. It will be a very pretty chaos as cerned with chance, and human per- an incredibly long time for the cycles of the repeating cycles of melody overlap ceptions of causality, but I had initially all 10 gears to come back and line up unpredictably. employed more symbolic depictions of the same again. The viewer/listener is Marc Berghaus is a sculptor, photographer these phenomena, such as small, mech- extremely unlikely to hear the same and sound artist living in Kansas, and has anized dioramas, or dice as a symbol of sequence twice, and interesting exhibited throughout the Midwest and west- chance. In the late 1990s, I discovered moments do occur: randomized ern United States. Examples of his work can several sources that would expand my chords; arpeggios. be seen and heard at .

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DRUM CIRCLE INSTRUMENTS Bruce Cana Fox, 24421 Flaxwood No. 204, Newhall, CA 91321, U.S.A. E-mail: .

The drum circle is a rich field for inno- vation and use of nontraditional mate- rials and techniques to make music [1,2]. Over years of enthusiastic par- ticipation in river-camp drum circles, I have made quite a few instruments in order to create different tambours, to avoid the impulse to buy things and to simply show off entertaining stuff. One of my favorite instruments is a collection of metal containers that I call the river gamelan (Fig. 22), originat- ing from electric blowers used by river- rafting companies to blow up inflatable rafts before trips. After making one good blower out of two bad ones, I had housing left over. I kept the housing because it made interesting noises and put it in my kit of drums and percus- sion for the upcoming trip’s drum Fig. 22. River gamelan, various drum circle instruments, 2007. (Photo © Bruce Cana Fox) circles. One night at the fire, having gotten a beat going, I was passing out some percussion instruments. I held made a rack-a-rack-a sound: a shaker plywood, with cutouts for each gong up one part of the blower housing and and guiro in one. Also, if one taps on and holes for the seven-strand support- a little stick. One lady reached out for the bottom with the end of the stick ing wires. it; I gave it to her and went on. When and also brings the tea-can shaker When a spontaneous drum circle the other half of the housing came out down on the thigh, one can obtain forms and conventional percussion of the bag, she wanted that too. Pretty a chick-a-tap-a sound. resources are unavailable, do not soon she had all my metal bits arranged For a totally different effect, when panic. Whatever is at hand can often on the bench beside her. Her groove the circle grows quiet, a scratching be brought to bear. I have joined in sounded like Javanese gamelan music. sound is sometimes nice. Two small from time to time with nothing more I now keep the kit together and often sanding disks with coarse grit sandpa- that a Swiss Army knife and an empty play the river gamelan in small circles. per can be manipulated to yield many beer bottle. With these one can find If I step away, it does not take long until different qualities of scratch and whiz. a variety of sounds depending on someone else sits down and gets a dif- At a camping store, I found a little where the bottle is tapped and how ferent sound from it than mine. bicycle bell that, when the cap was it is held. Some drum circle beginners are turned in either direction, made a reluctant to hammer out their beats very nice high-pitched ringing and References and Note on a big drum. Many, however, will take could be easily manipulated to main- 1. Arthur Hull is the father and midwife of the mod- a shaker and join in. As a substitute for tain some pretty complex patterns. ern drum circle movement. His book Drum Circle expensive store-bought shakers, I use For the pure joy of showing off at Spirit: Facilitating Human Potential through Rhythm (In- a plastic cosmetics container, cheaply a big drum circle, the gong rack is the cline Village, NV: White Cliffs Media, 1998) describes drum circles and the process of learning to facilitate available at certain big-box stores, and big winner. I had restrung a friend’s them. a tablespoon of BB ammunition. I gamelan nipple gongs to their original 2. Christine Stevens, The Art and Heart of Drum Cir- screw the lid on and take one pass rack with some sturdy plastic-covered cles (Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard, 2003) provides around the side and cap with trans- seven-strand fishing wire. This repair further insight and grooves for the drum-circle afi- parent strapping tape. led me to the thought that it would be cionado. I once had a tea can with some rivets nice to have a sound like that in other Bruce Cana Fox is an artist, author, aikido in it that produced a nice buzzing drum circle venues. I obtained a set of instructor and river guide who makes a liv- sound. A friend took it, along with a five Thai nipple gongs by mail order ing as an electronics engineer at an airplane stick, and customized it in a fit of drum- and designed a rack to secure them to factory. He participates in many drum circles circle enthusiasm. It looked bad but, an upright drum I had had in use for and facilitates drum circles in river camp as when stroked with a crenellated stick, some years. The rack is just laminated a guide on the Kern River.

50 Artists’ Statements

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