What we did
Today we had a workshop with Rory, I like his workshops because of the creative freedom he gives to us. He had a big pallet on the floor and told us to make instruments to attach to it.
I sorted by making a spring instrument, by drilling screws into pieces of wood I made a funny sounding noise. This was interesting experience because of the unusual noised that could come from just a few things.
The Zane Knight guitar
Later on in the lecture I saw that there where tuning pegs for a guitar and decided to try and make a simplistic instruments that could have pitch, we where able to drill in the pegs into the wood. After we attached it to a long string from an old guitar then turn the pegs. The gutter didn’t have a neck with frets that where long enough to play chords but we used a violin string on them to create a unique sound.
How it applied to our creative radio project
It was eye opening to see how easy it is to make an instrument and attach a compressed mic to it to create a sound. I think we want to use this in our radio project as it’s able to make drone sound effects. After the lecture we ran the contact mic the gutter strings where near and got some fascinating noises.
Instrument creation
Looking further into instrument creation I like the idea of making a guitar from scratch, it’s an inspiring project that could be implemented into my art to create something individualist.
Leo Fender (1909-1995)
There are some obvious music instrument pioneers like Leo Fender (1909-1995) who created the Fender guitar, which was revolutionary at the time as it was easier to play than the current electric guitars available to play at the time due to their short necks.
Christiana Kubisch (1948)
She made an instrument that uses headphones to convert electromagnetic sound into audio signals. Her exhibition “electrical walks” (2007) lets people walk through and hear all the hidden electrical currents coming from different things.
Its relation to radiophonic art
The main benefit of creating new instruments for radiophonic art is the possibility of not using traditional tools. The abstract nature of radiophonic art means that creating something that hanse been seen or heard of before is of great significance. Its good to reimagine what sound can be when wanting to create something new to our ears, creating musical instruments is changes the traditional channels of media.
References
France, P. (n.d.). 8 Things You Might Not Know About Leo Fender. [online] www.fender.com. Available at: https://www.fender.com/articles/behind-the-scenes/8-things-you-might-not-know-about-leo-fender.
Kubisch, C. (n.d.). Electrical Walks. [online] christina kubisch. Available at: https://christinakubisch.de/electrical-walks.
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