Tag Archives: musical instrument design

If Wet 2014

Onward

In order to make this sustainable, we have set a budget of £400 for each If Wet. Therefore the funds we have raised so far will cover three events in the village hall in 2014. We are now looking for funding for additional events in this our home venue. We hope that potential funders will see the effort and outcomes of our first season and will be willing to match our own fundraising. We’ll see. We’d certainly love to do more events in our hall this year, since this is where the heart of If Wet lies.

Once we see how we get on with our search for funding, we will define our programme at Callow End Village Hall, but for now we just wanted to provide this update and statement of intent.

Also, If Wet has grown wings and will take flight in 2014, stopping to perch at a variety of venues – occasionally with a subtly different format. First up, we have been asked by Flatpack Festival to host an If Wet as part of their festival this year. The second If Wet outing of the year will be the Southbank Centre, when we host a Meet The Makers event. Then we are talking with Capsule about a potentially very exciting event in April. More details on all of these soon but we are delighted to be keeping such fabulous company!

AND we secured funding through Sound and Music, which will see us tour some village halls this year.

Wowee! Thanks again to all who have supported us.

ONWARD.

If Wet #7 – documentation

Welcome

Photo: Pete Ashton

MortonUnderwood present…

[1:30 – 22:05 | Part 1]

“The main reason that it’s in a trolley is that if you move this trolley around, as you move over differently reflective areas it changes pitch.”

“Getting the backing off the tape proved to be the most challenging thing because Sam has got no fingernails and I’ve got bad eyesight.”

“What we have done is take the optical reader for the synth and put it under the trolley, and then any design on the floor sequences the sound as you move it across it.”

Photo: Pete Ashton

“David insisted on this humiliation for me on a regular basis.”
[Sam talking about completing a touch circuit using Sam’s head – pictured above]

“The reaction from the public was ‘this is really fascinating’. […] Now I wouldn’t have expected that reaction but it was a solid repeated reaction. They don’t know what contact mics sound like.”
[David talking about the addition of a contact mic to the underside of the trolley top]

Ian Rawes

[20:05 – 1:03:00 | Part 1]
First we welcomed Ian Rawes of the British Library Sound Archive and London Sound Survey to present a series of fascinating archival recordings.

Photo: Pete Ashton

“They are called transcriptions discs. They are old 78 RPM discs and they’ve got programmes and out-takes, and some things which were never broadcast at all. […] The BBC don’t actually know about a lot of these things, or they’ve forgotten about them. When I first came across them I was very excited because you hear another world of sound.”

“I am interested in the sounds of everyday life, not really the great and the good being interviewed, which is what the vast majority of the old recordings are.”

“The earliest microphones or recording equipment was very insensitive to sound. […] They are always shouting; you get the impression people were very angry or very emphatic.”

Photo: Pete Ashton

“The very oldest, surviving public recording in Britain […] is from Crystal Palace in 1888. […] Handel’s Messiah performed by a 4000-strong choir. […] It has a certain quality as you will hear.”
[Ian describing the remarkable recording which begins at 01:00:30]

Helen White

[00:10 – 30:05 | Part 2]
Our final presentation of 2013, was by Helen White who brought along her wonderful solar-wind chime to show us.

Photo: Pete Ashton

“It’s a solar-wind chime that gathers data from the sun. It’s not everyday that you look at data from satellites and turn it into magnetic resonance, so I will try to explain how we got there.”

“The sun is ninety-three million miles away and it’s spewing charred particles at us all the time. […] These particles have different effects depending on all sorts of properties in them.”

“The three characters of the solar wind are: its speed, its density and the magnetic direction that the particles are facing. […] That’s what this piece of work focusses on; it reads the speed of the wind and interprets it through a series of sounds.”

“The data comes from a satellite called ACE.”

Photo: Pete Ashton

“I love the idea that it can be so gentle and subtle. In fact, I had this on my desk, it was playing and I switched off from it. It was kind of like that ticking clock, it just disappears.”

Run What Ya Brung

We run a regular feature at If Wet in which members of the audience are invited to bring along and demonstrate instruments, sound objects and sonic oddities. For the first time nobody presented anything in this section, in part due to our regular contributors being away. A shame but this did result in is another first; we finished on time!

________________________________________

The full set of Pete’s photographs of If Wet are available here.

A huge thank you to:
Everyone who presented! Everyone who engaged and provided feedback. Everyone who came. Kavita for cooking, running the bar and tidying up. Petefor taking photographs.

If Wet #6 – documentation

Welcome

If Wet #6

Photo: George Benson

MortonUnderwood present…

[1:30 – 22:05 | Part 1]

“In April of this year I was appointed as the Artist-in-Residence at the Town Hall Symphony Hall in Birmingham, […] because they don’t do weird very well.”

This big

Photo: George Benson

“The police were about to send in a robot […] to blow it up!”
[Sam discussing the first Sonic Graffiti piece to appear in Symphony Hall]

No, this big

Photo: George Benson

“We didn’t want to put labels saying this is the microphone, this is the record button, this is the loudspeaker; we wanted it to be something you could intuit.”
[David discussing our ‘A Word In Your Ear’ sound art piece]

“This is what happens when Sam and I have a 20 minute phone call about how we might put it in a box and what we might do about the user interface to make it easy to tell which bit to speak into. It’s quite worrying really that it winds up looking like something out of a David Cronenberg movie.”

A Word In Your Ear

Soundhog

[22:20 – 1:01:25 | Part 1]
Ben Soundhog introduced his production techniques and work on his piece Whole Lotta Helter Skelter bastard pop piece.

Soundhog

Photo: George Benson

“I’ve always had this kind of fascination with messing up other people’s work, whether they like it or not.”

“I used to have an Atari 800 […] and you could have I think it was 7 seconds in total in samples, which you then split up into eight […] but there was enough there so you could start nicking notes off people’s records. “

Soundhog

Photo: George Benson

“He put out two singles out. They were both under the counter because they were, in terms of copyright, completely illegal.”

“It has gone into the mainstream. I hear stuff now using whacking great big chunks of other peoples music. That is a direct line from what we were doing; it did have an effect. We were always hoping that we’d get involved but of course what happens in the music industry, they take it themselves, they squish it down into something they can deal with and then they make the money out of it – then they are all happy.”

Soundhog

Photo: George Benson

“This is why everybody would use stuff like the Beastie Boys because the vocal tracks were easily available; they were always on the B-side of the 12 inch single. […] But what has happened in recent years […] there were a couple of console games out, one called Rock Band and one called Guitar Hero, […] and this is how much clout the gaming industry developed, they actually were able to go to the record companies dig out the multi-track masters and use them as the basis of the samples in the game.”

“I know a lot of people don’t like you messing with things that are, you know, sacred but […] it’s not like the originals don’t exist any more. If you want to hear it as it is then it’s there for you but if you want just something a bit different then so long as it’s not a complete mess I think you should be able to have a go at this.”

Soundhog

Photo: George Benson

“To be honest I’ve never had much feedback from people but one of the guitar players out of Paul McCartney’s current touring band, which is fantastic, and Jimmy Page’s website had it on their front page, so they must be alright with it.”

soundhog.blogspot.co.uk

Graham Dunning

[00:10 – 53:35 | Part 2]
Graham Dunning discusses and demonstrates his project Music by the Metre.

Graham Dunning

Photo: George Benson

“It’s based on an idea by Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio, […] he’s founding member of the situationist movement and Italian painter and also chemist and he came up with industrial painting, Painting by the Metre. […] My version is an audio homage to that technique.”

“I’ve got some machines which create some abstract music which I then use to fill up a spool of tape. […] So what I’ll do is set up the machines until it’s making something resembling something musical and then that’s the end of my intervention with it. […] I just leave it to run, fill up all of one side of the tape and then turn it over and fill up the other side.”

Graham Dunning

Photo: George Benson

“The idea of vertical music is that it’s always changing but it’s always the same, and it’s never changing but it’s never the same.”

“I am going to set up one of these machines now today and as I go along I am going to describe what the sources are. So, I’ll just start doing that.”

Graham Dunning

Photo: George Benson

“I am also using a rock from just outside to hold the back end of the tonearm hopefully to make it loop on the same bit so it doesn’t spiral towards the middle.”

“Next up, I’ve got another turntable, which has been slightly butchered. […] I’ve taken out the original motor and have put in this kind of hobby motor, which has an adjustable speed on it. […] It goes from quite slow to being much faster than a normal record player.”

“Just trying to find a certain record. They are all unlabelled so I can’t remember which one it was. […] These are some dubplates that I got made of different field recordings I recorded myself. […] This is the sound of, I put some cymbals out in the rain each with a contact mic on.”

“The longer you listen to it the more you can hear.”

Graham Dunning

Photo: George Benson

“This microphone is going out the window to get some traffic noise, or in a more academic way of putting it, live environmental sound.”

“There is quite a nice sweep to even regular traffic and I think in the context of quite a noise-heavy conversation between these different sounds it can change the composition. […] Over the course of the tape it’s actually different all the way through.”

Graham Dunning

Photo: George Benson

“One final element, inside this tape is a loop of cassette. […] This is from a remix I did for a saxophone player called Colin Webster. […] To remix one of his tracks I recorded it out to tape and then made up sixteen of these cassettes of little snippets and then played eight of them together. […] All slightly different, so they go in and out of sync together.”

“So, I am happy with that as the composition as it is going to be. The last bit to do is switch the tape on so, start it running and just leave it recording until it has filled both sides of the tape.”

“That’s it, it’s going and it’s out of my hands!.”

grahamdunning.com

Run What Ya Brung

[54:54 – 01:03:54 | Part 2]
We run a regular feature at If Wet in which members of the audience are invited to bring along and demonstrate instruments, sound objects and sonic oddities. This month we had a great contribution from our regular contributor Richard Windley.

Richard Windley

[54:54 – 01:03:54 | Part 2]

“I’ve got a couple of quite nice handmade guitars that I’ve had for years and I’ve gradually got more and more frustrated with them. […] I thought maybe I’d better design one that I like […] so I designed and built this one a few years ago. […] This thing I’ve only added recently and it was an attempt to do this thing which Indian instruments and some European instruments like hurdy gurdies often have these things called sympathetic strings […] to broaden the range of the sound and to give me more sustain.”

Richard Hawley

Photo: George Benson

richardwindley.co.uk

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This is the first month Pete Ashton was unable to attend If Wet, so we don’t have the usual photographs on his Flickr BUT the wonderful George Benson stepped in to help, so thank you to him for the great photos of If Wet #6 used in this post.

A huge thank you to:
Everyone who presented! Everyone who engaged and provided feedback. Everyone who came. Kavita for cooking, running the bar and tidying up. George for taking photographs.

If Wet #5 – documentation

1 Reply

If Wet #5 was an unusually interactive event – people even went outside! We merely introduced this If Wet, with no further input. As ever our guests did us proud.

Here is the full audio recording, in three parts: Part1 / Part2 / Part3

Here’s an overview of what went on, so you can access topics of interest:

Welcome

Photo: Pete Ashton

“We set up If Wet […] as a bit of an antidote to the rock/blues nights there are throughout the region. We didn’t really feel there was a requirement for another one of those, so we decided to set this up.”

Nikki Pugh

[03:30 – 36:45 | Part 1]
Nikki Pugh introduced us to her work related to space and in particular her project Score for heavy objects and built environment.

Photo: Pete Ashton

“You know there is this whole drive to make technology smaller, more invisible, I just like the idea of going ‘Raggghh here it is!’, and I’ve got to carry it.”
[Nikki discussing her huge, heavy tubes used for this project]

“Inside them […] a micro-controller. As small computer, based on the Arduino platform. It’s three things really: it’s little PCBs with computer chips on them, it’s also software that is designed for artists to use, and a massive support community as well.”

Photo: Pete Ashton

“Inside here I’ve got two GPS receivers […] just the raw component. […] and a solenoid.”

Photo: Pete Ashton

“I view these as this kind of expanded, augmented sense, and use it to pull people’s attention to the built environment around them in different ways. […] I walked down New Street in Birmingham and because I was carrying this kind of equipment with me, suddenly noticed OH! there are trees all down New Street. Just because it made me raise my eye-line and look up. […] To try and make people tune in in different ways.”

“We’re just going to play you some of the data recorded on the walk. […] It’s the data themselves played back in the same way that they tap as you carry them around. […] It’s quite a direct link back to all that sweating and swearing.”

“Because it’s quite an abstract process I wanted to give you the opportunity to experience these yourselves.”

We all head outside with the Heavy Objects.

Photo: Pete Ashton

npugh.co.uk

Kathy Hinde

[00:20 – 55:00 | Part 2]
Kathy Hinde discusses her project Vocal Migrations and the influences that led her to create the project.

Photo: Pete Ashton

“My background is working with music and visual art. I’ve never really wanted to decide between the two, I’ve always wanted to do both.”

“I got involved with an organisation called COMMA, which stands for Contemporary Music Making for Amateurs. That’s using the word amateur in its original meaning, which means for the love of it.”

Photo: Pete Ashton

“We were doing full orchestra pieces that were for wine glasses, fire extinguishers and you know, cellos and violins and pianos. […] The way that some of the composers chose to deal with this mixed ensemble of different abilities and maybe odd instrument combinations were really interesting. There were all sorts of different strategies.”

“One of the pieces was working with the composer Terry Riley. […] COMMA did the UK première of this piece with Terry Riley. […] Terry Riley was conducting. Not really realising the significance of how great this guy is; these were really formative experiences.”

Photo: Pete Ashton

“Moving on to my piece Vocal Migrations, I wanted to work with this idea of an open score.”

“There is so much in nature that creates incredible complex beauty that works with very, very simple rules.”

“It’s inspired by how bats use sound to see. […] There is a guy in America called Daniel Kish who is blind who has taught himself to echolocate using clicks.”

Photo: Pete Ashton

“It’s this idea of creating a situation or a behaviour for people to be immersed in. I think once you remove sight then there is something quite interesting happens in terms of having to trust this device, having to really listen […] and there is this point at which you really relax into it, and sort of go I’m OK, I can just use my listening to these sounds to make sense of my environment.”

kathyhinde.co.uk

Run What Ya Brung

[01:05:14 – 01:16:45 | Part 2]
We run a regular feature at If Wet in which members of the audience are invited to bring along and demonstrate instruments, sound objects and sonic oddities. This month we had a viola da gamba and recorder piece, an iPhone drone app and a bass string drone instrument.

Tim Cranmore and Ange

[00:30 – 12:50 | Part 3]

Photo: Pete Ashton

“We are just going to play a bit of music, if I dare mention the word.”

“The Viola da gamba came before all the other stringed instruments.”

fippleflute.co.uk

Simon Gray

[14:04 – 21:45 | Part 3]

Photo: Pete Ashton

“A lot of us who make drone-based music will have an app called iTablaPro, which as well as having tabla drums has a tanpura, which generates Indian drones. When we are playing drone-based music we don’t always want to have the Indian sound, we might want an electronic sound.”

star-one.org.uk

Richard Windley

[23:10 – 31:07 | Part 3]

Photo: Pete Ashton

“Then I came across this reference to an early instrument called a Trumpet Marine (sic). it was a single stringed instrument and rather than fret it you played the harmonics on it. And then I remembered something a lap steel player showed me and that is if you play a harmonic on an open string and then slide the bar up the harmonic actually follows the note, […] which surprised me.”

richardwindley.co.uk

NOTE: the details at the end of Part 3 of the audio about our November fundraising event are incorrect. Keep your eye on THIS PAGE for details!

________________________________________

The full set of Pete’s photographs of If Wet are available here.

A huge thank you to:
Everyone who presented! Everyone who engaged and provided feedback. Everyone who came. Kavita for cooking, running the bar and tidying up. Pete Ashton for taking photographs.