This is an interesting watch – I especially liked how she illustrated the difference between reading music & interpreting it:
I often read books & articles on how people approach & think about their work in other creative fields, as the techniques are often either transferrable or inspire other ways of thinking about sound design and music. So if you would like some interesting advice & insight into the creative process of some very successful creative people, then have a read of this article – the author of the Magnum Photographers blog asked the same two questions of 35 photographers:
When did you first get excited about photography?
What advice would you give young photographers?
So have a read, heres a link to the PDF and wherever they say photo substitute the word sound (or music, whichever is your primary muse)
When did you first get excited about music?
What advice would you give young musicians?
Micro Garden by Arius Blaze of Folktek
While its very intriguing & makes some great sounds, it reminds me of a Len Lye kinetic sculpture which also made very beautiful sounds, without the aid of any electricity! Actually thats a lie, electricity was involved in making it move…
‘Grass’ made in 1965 by Len Lye
Since theres no video or sound I can link to, I’ll try to describe it from memory: basically the whole wooden base that the thin metal rods are connected to gently/slowly rocks, so the rods emulate the movement of wind through long grass… and of course, as the rods bend & move they ping each other making the most exquisite, delicate sounds..
In my humble opinion, there is nothing better than walking into an art gallery & hearing a sound that is evocative, but you cannot imagine how it is being created. Such is Len Lyes kinetic sculptures, although not all of them are gentle works… A Flip & Two Twisters is a good example of a scary dramatic kinetic sculpture; you stand in awe in its presence – overwhelmed by its physicality & equally fascinated & unnerved by the energy involved…
In the following video you see Universe as well as Blade and at 6’00″ or so A Flip & Two Twisters (although sadly youtubes audio renders the effect to be 0.01% of reality)
Wired has an interesting interview; ‘How to mod a piano’ with the musician who goes by the name of Hauschka
Wired.com: Is there a way to categorize the modifications? Is it like, things that bounce and things that tamp the volume, or is it just a near infinite amount of possibility?
Bertelman: There are two different ways. One is, you put material on top of the strings that are bouncing or vibrating on top of the strings, so they are resonant on top of the string… If I’m playing an upright, it is different, because they are swinging, but if I’m playing a grand piano they are just flipping. So there is the piano tone plus vibration, which is one thing. And then I am using, for example, tape — like duct tape. With that, you can change the envelope of the tones. You can tamp them, or you can make them shorter — they sound just like pizzicato strings. I’m also using these felt things that piano tuners use to mute the note, you are familiar with that?
Wired.com: Yes.
Bertelman: It’s just things that you just clamp between the two strings to mute them. With that, they get a very, very short tone, and very percussive. So I would say these two things I’m using at the moment. But there’s more stuff coming on top of that. I’m using e-bows, which are normally used for electric guitar. Are you familiar with those?
Wired.com: Oh yes.
Bertelman: I’m using those on the piano, and they are great, because they create a kind of patch. I have a constant tone and can play on top of that. And I’m actually developing at the moment a couple of different machines, where I’m using little motors to have more of a constant vibration in the piano so that I can create carpets of sound.
Wired.com: Incredible.
Bertelman: The more you work with it, the more you want to have different options, and the more you don’t want to use other instruments. Just using this one, you get deeper and deeper into the instrument and what you can do with it. The piano offers, I would say, all the options that you would want to have.
