Made some more piezo mics last night. These are for the live contact mic performance in our improv. I made them for next week's instrument-making project as well, since they might come in handy. They took forever to make because at home there's not much to hold each bit steady for easier soldering.
Also put the cricket together last night. Today I searched out all the good spots for bending the sounds. I chose the pins that changed the pitch and the pins which controls the speed at which it oscillates. Added a potentiometer to control each one.
Today in our groups we decided what role each of us will play during the improv performance. Me, Dexter, and Brian will be bending circuits live while Supa would be doing live piezo mic work and Jenna will be handling the recordings with Virtual DJ.
To make my circuit easier to play during the performance I mounted the entire thing on a piece of wood. This makes it easier because both my hands would be free to turn any of the knobs. If it weren't mounted I'd have to have one hand holding them still and the other doing the turning. I've also mounted it specially so that the mic of the cricket is right beside the speaker of the siren. This is so that the mic would pick up the siren and activate its own sound.
Today there were also some interesting videos and an interesting speaker as well.
My favourite was Clara Rockmore playing on the theremin. Absolutely beautiful and sounds just like a violin. If I wasn't looking I would've thought it was a real violin. It's interesting how electronics can mimic a large variety of other sounds. I guess that one cool thing about circuit bending is that within the circuit you've stored a range of sounds. So if you want a particular sound for a movie, music video, etc you don't have to have the real instrument or the real thing to get the sound since they're found inside a particular circuit. One thing I want to know more about sound would be something extremely impermanent. For example, fireworks. I think fireworks are an artform and once they burn out they're gone forever and you can't get another one unless you burn another. I want something impermanent like that in sound. A sound that lasts for a short time that you can never get back. EVER.
Anyway, another cool video was Alvin Lucier and his contact mics reacting to his bodily functions and brainwaves to play different drums. I've thought about turning brainwaves into sound before, but never really thought about the means of doing it. So that was quite interesting for me. Something even more amazing would be to turn the brainwaves into sound, then decipher the sound made by the brainwaves to see what the person is thinking. I wonder if that would be too intrusive though, the idea that you can literally hear what a person is thinking through deciphering their brainwaves music.
Clinton was our guest speaker today. His work shows the relationship between sound and graphics, especially in circuit bending for both sound and visuals. I loved the seizure-causing graphics and how it lights up his exhibition spaces. I especially liked his palette of colours because they were limited and felt really clean and sharp.
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