This is a journey into Sound.
I love music with a greater passion than most of the rest of life. Which is ironic, because I am most definitely not a musician or singer. The impossibility of describing my arc through the soundscapes and soundtracks of my life is equal to the impossibility of overstating the importance of music and sound to my life, or the totality of my lack of rhythm - as anyone who has seen me dance will testify.
It is important to say that my listening tastes are esoteric and challenging - I am a picky bugger. It depresses me to hear people say things such as "I know what I like", when it comes to anything cultural. Most of the time, what they mean is "I'm too disinterested/busy/lazy to think about it". Their breadth is narrow, their depth shallow. I am the opposite in as much as I know what I Don't like!
For me, culture is like a vast swampy delta. There are many channels, some are shallow, others run deep. And being the man I am, the backwaters and lost pools are where I'm happiest and at one with - for want of a better term, what I shall call - my soul.
(*notice all the landscape terminology and metaphors?! :D )
There are thousands of musics which you may never have heard of. Balinese gamelan, Tuvaluan throat-singing, Indian raga... contemporary avant-garde... improvised, field recordings - all those endless ends... Music is such a living thing! From birdsong to whale song to the wind across the ocean, through the trees and in your hair, resonating in your chest and bones. I experience music as a visceral life-force that literally resonates with my passion for the Earth and the landscape.
I have many pieces that are challenging to the point of unlistenable - but I keep them for exactly that reason. Such musics deserve extra special attention - 'close-listening' - because of their nature. Given the attention and consideration that they deserve, they can open up new ways of thinking.
Which eventually brings me to the object of this post.
In 2010 I created two sculptures recycling the frame and parts from an old shopping bike. The first static sculpture was made from the wheels and handlebars. It's now lost to the skips of time. The second more kinetic sculpture is still here, and it is this - built with my own fair thumbs.
This is the Bikesichord - an electric harp made from the frame and other bits of the bike, with tuning heads, strings and pickups from an electric guitar. It has a home made built in circuit and produces a chiming, bell-like sound. It is a bit of a bitch to tune though, having twelve strings staggering more or less in the vicinity of the pick ups, and a narrow, flexible tube perforated by the tuning pins.
What makes it interesting though is when you start to experiment with it. Running it through a couple of effects pedals such as delay/loop and overdrive, allows you to create more diverse ambient drones and harmonics. Being all tubular construction means that knocking or tapping the frame will produce a sound, and the pick ups will react to things like electric motors operated in close proximity... All of which makes for a deeply satisfying array of experimental noise making. I've goofed around with this machine many times over the last 6 years, even uploading a couple of tracks to Soundcloud for the brave few. (They're gone now. I just looked. It's been a while. If I re-upload them I'll get back to you... but trust me, it's better this way...)
The Bikesichord was revamped and played by Rusty Sheriff at the opening of "In Rust We Trust" in 2012. And I'm planning on polishing it up again for a performance early in July this year. More on that at a later date. :)
As I have said, it has been sat around for quite a long time now, so later this year it will go up for sale. I've had a lot of fun annoying my neighbours with it and now I feel I'm comfortable with it finding a new home with someone who has a fresh enthusiasm for it. If you're interested, give me a shout.
Meanwhile...
"Stay tuned!!"
(Heh? Eh? Yeah! Ffnarr)...
:D
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