Archive for the ‘Instruments’ Category

5 feet high and rising

Monday, November 6th, 2006

reflection_1.jpg

The water in the hole is rising. What once looked like a futuristic city of tuned percussion now lies pretty much completely submerged. The consequence is that the music is now largely made up of watery sounds, accompanied by the chiming of the few instruments that still hang above the surface.

It sounds lovely but if you’re planning to visit don’t expect the full ensemble for the time being. It’s quiet, minimal and aquasonic.

[audio:sfahitg 1-11-06_3-seg.mp3]

There are several possibilities for the fact that the drain doesn’t work. The most likely is that the chalk under the floor of the hole takes its time to soak up the overflow and it’s still coping with the deluge that poured in during the storms a couple of weeks ago. This adds an unexpected and not unwelcome new dimesion to the ebb and flow of the music.

autumn_4.jpg

there’s a lot going on underground

Wednesday, September 20th, 2006

instr_3.jpg

Inside the hole hang instruments from vertical bars, while the horn sprouts two flexi hose roots, ending in cones, a mirror of the horn, to amplify the music of percussion and water.

More images . . . . .

hybrid water instrument

Monday, June 26th, 2006

notebook_2.jpg

Inspired by reading Jacques Dudon’s book, “La Musique de L’eau”, this is a more sophisticated possibility for the basis of the instrumentation, combining an “organ” with the marimba and chime bar instrument described below.

In the book an instrument is described in which a tube with a whistle hole cut into it stands in water. Water poured into an adjacent tube causes air to be pushed into the whistle pipe and make a sound, pitched according to its length.

Here such an instrument is placed underneath, and in the path of, water falling from the pivoting of a shishi odoshi (“deer scarer”) principle instrument, thus combining four sounds; falling and dripping water, a marimba, chime bars and an organ tone.

Such an arrangement would be duplicated a number of times, using differently tuned marimba bars, chime bars and “organ ” pipes.