Gravikords Whirlies & Pyrophones
Experimental Musical Instruments
Cindy Perroth
Electronic Music
4/14/98
Throughout history, today's conventional musical instruments were, and still are, continuously manipulated to create that "better" sound. These are the sounds that we here everyday on the radio, television and any other musical outlet. Because of this, these are the sounds our ears have become accustomed to and therefore, shapes the music we tend to create. However, this confinement to a certain standard sound has also created a search for something new and has brought about a need for many musicians to go further than creating "better" sounds, and instead create unique and imaginative instruments of their own. This has been accomplished through the use of materials that most musicians would not even think twice about. Materials such as, tree branches, windshield wiper blades, rocking chairs, typewriters, Champaign glasses and flower pots. This type of instrument creation has been going on for many years with no formal way of introducing these new and inventive sounds to the world. Bart Hopkin, an instrument inventor himself, has created a quarterly magazine, "Experimental Musical Instruments", a book, Gravikords Whirlies & Pyrophones, as well as a conglomerate 73 minute CD which includes musical instrument inventors of the past and present. He has created these in hopes to provide an outlet for many musicians as well as to create a chance for many others to share in the entertaining and unique music they create. His contributions to music, electronic and acoustic, have and will continue to play an important role in the development and expansion of music as a whole.
Bart Hopkin is not someone who just decided they wanted to make strange noises and call it music, he studied and played music for many years before beginning the magazine "Experimental Musical Instruments". In 1974 Bart Hopkin received a B.A. magna cum laude from Harvard University and later received a B.A. in music education from San Francisco State University. He is also a professional guitarist who has taught, written, composed, performed and recorded in many places, such as Kingston and Jamaica where for several years he reconstructed and wrote on Jamaican children's songs as well as revival church music. His quarterly journal "Experimental Musical Instruments" began in 1985 and is dedicated to new and unusual musical instruments and sound makers. This magazine takes a look at acoustic and electro acoustic instruments of all kinds. The more inventive, thought provoking and distinctively appealing, the better. Bart Hopkin acknowledges newly created instruments as well as interesting traditional and historical instruments. Some of these instruments are designed for a traditional approach to music as well as instruments that take on new musical forms. Along with this magazine publication, EMI releases a cassette tape at the end of each year with instruments that appeared in the magazine. This is Bart Hopkin's way of introducing new music to the world, presenting a diverse combination of strange inventions and outrageous thinkers. His compilations are of some of the best and strangest minds and instruments in the field. (http://windworld.com/emi/articles.htm)
In Hopkin's book Gravikords Whirlies & Pyrophones, many different instruments and sounds are introduced and explained. He recognizes and believes strongly in the fact that nature has given us unlimited sound making possibilities, yet most musical instruments do not even touch the surface of these possibilities. However, there are some instrument makers that do not design according to standards of preexisting types, rather they follow their own musical form, creation and design. Bart Hopkin admits that there are disadvantages to one of a kind instrument making. As with most new inventions they may tend to be quirky or rough around the edges, no one but the inventor will have the skill to play them, and there is no familiar repertoire for them to play as well as to be recognized by. Many of these instruments have also been criticized as not having a cultural richness, and a lack of knowledge of their expressive capabilities. But at the same time if all of these things are unknown and require discovery, then what a new and exciting musical discovery they could create. This spark of interest and adventure is just a small part in which Bart Hopkin play's in musical ideas of the future. (Hopkin, pg.7)
Hopkin's beliefs and ideas surrounding electronic music helped shape his ideas and goals today. He believes that some of the most important instruments that were developed in the second half of the twentieth century have been electronic instruments such as, synthesizers and computer music systems. They changed music making in ways that were never before thought possible. However, even though electronic music manufacturers have opened up new prospects, they have at the same time taken an unimaginative approach by commercially limiting electronic music to a keyboard style medium. The keyboard has served music well for centuries, however, as a musical control system it is just one of endless options. Not only does the shape of an instrument give it life, in Hopkin's eyes, but the interaction of the human body with the physical instrument also plays an important part in giving music it's character, life, color and diversity. Piano keyboards give music a piano type sound because of their keyboard configuration which tend to incorporate certain patterns of pitch, rhythm and articulation. The same thing is true for other instruments such as guitars, where most of them tend to bring out the same strumming, plucking and chord patterns that are characteristically guitar. This brings about one of the greatest things about experimental music for Hopkin, it's distinctive uniqueness to the individual instrument, that certain sound you can't find anywhere else. (Hopkin, pg. 8)
In much of the contemporary music making that Bart Hopkin has seen and collected there are some common themes or approaches. After recognizing this aspect, he began to consider what plays an important part in the thinking of contemporary instrument makers. One important aspect he found was that many of the instruments and their music seem to have a feeling for natural forms and incorporate this by using natural materials, and seem to engulf that relationship between their sound and the natural world. Other experimental music makers create instruments that are inspired by their own cultural worlds. Some makers may use the traditional methods and materials of these instruments while others try to recreate the sound using nontraditional methods and materials. (http://www.ninstones.com/gravikord.html)
Another similarity that Bart Hopkin has found within experimental musical instruments is the fact that there is an interest in tuning systems that are different than the twelve tone equal temperament system we are accustomed to today. Today, composers working in this area can create non twelve tone music by using computers and retuneable synthesizers which can create anything the composer wants. As well, many times just minor changes on existing instruments can introduce a scale other than the twelve tone. However, most of the instruments incorporated into Hopkin's book and CD do produce their own distinctive scales. ( http://windworld.com/emi/articles .htm)
Hopkin also began to see a more social context in the music makers motivation. Many instruments have been designed specifically to make a statement or reflect a certain attitude towards concert hall and conservative music making formats. To reflect this point instrument inventors have created large instruments that require many players at once, as well as easily played instruments that are handed out to everyone in a musical gathering. This is also achieved through quiet meditative instruments intended for an audience of one, and also within instruments that play themselves. Along this same idea, Hopkin seemed to conclude that many of these musicians are trying to blur the line between the performer and the audience, the musician and the non-musician, and to change the players control over the instrument in an attempt to create more of an interaction instead of a rehearsed mastered product. (Hopkin, pg. vi)
One of these musical inventors, is a man by the name of Qubais Reed Ghazala, and his circuit - bent instruments. The idea for these instruments came about in the late sixties when Ghazala was closing a desk drawer and heard a strange sound. It ended up being a palm sized transistor amplifier with it's circuitry exposed, and it was simply shorting out. So he began exploring the art of circuit bending, "deliberately short circuiting audio components in search of interesting sounds." (Hopkin, pg.25) In Ghazala's circuit bending procedure he starts out with a low voltage electronic gadget. He then exposes the circuitry and turns the gadget on. He then uses a simple wire to randomly connect two points on the circuit, shorting them and creating some type of sound. He continues this as he writes them all down. After he has come up with a list of intriguing sounds he has to find a way to make them accessible to a player. One way is to wire these connections up to a series of knobs and switches in a casing. Another unique way is through body contact pads on the face of the instrument. In this case the players body would complete the circuit to make the noise. In this way the sound created would be different with each individual player. His piece Silence the Tongues of Prophecy is based on the circuitry of three discontinued Texas Instrument toys called "Speak and Spell" . By misdirecting the output and bending the circuits he created a strange, segmented, pitch shifted human voice with mixed up musical noise along with abstract electronic noise. This piece clearly represents Ghazala's sound artist, technician and visual artist expertise. (Hopkin, pg. 26 & 27)
Another example of the musicians within Bart Hopkin's book is a man by the name of Don Buchla. He creates electronic musical instruments as well. The difference between his instruments and the standards today are not necessarily the different sound generating circuitry but the ways in which his instruments interact with the players. In Don Buchla's words, "In recent years, I've shifted from an emphasis on synthesis and sound production to a concern with the gestures that produce the sound-in other words, the human interface." Buchla works off the fact that electronic instruments don't have any kind of piano type requirements or limitations. An electric keyboard can be arranged in any pattern desired, and along with electronic sensing technology can track almost any sort of human movement. Just as hitting a piano key sounds a note, human gestures can be used to communicate with a synthesizer. However, Don Buchla does not want to create instruments where a particular movement is linked to a particular musical answer. Instead he creates flexible musical systems which allow the user to make their own links. In many of his instruments he has used tactile touch plate array. This is an instrument where the surface is not only sensitive to the presence of a finger but the degree of the finger pressure as well as the location of the finger contact on the key. In the piece In the Beginning, Etude II, which was arranged for any combination of acoustic instruments, Buchla has arranged for two Buchla 400's. These are 1982 digital synthesizers which were unique at the time for their video based editor and it's real time scoring ability. In this performance by Don Buchla and Robert Moog they don't play individual pitches on a keyboard but rather notes that were programmed from the original score so that a touch of a key plays whole phrases. However, Buchla set the interface so that the performers had control over the timbre, rhythmic structure and the location and movement of the sound in a quadraphonic structure. "A great strength of the Buchla instruments is that in their physical form and in the abstract possibilities they suggest, they call on people to consider the world of sound with new minds and ears and hands." (Hopkin, pg.40)
One of the most stressed points Bart Hopkin makes is that instrument making is not only for the specialists, intellectuals and madmen. Instrument making is for anyone with a creative and open mind. Though the musicians that make up his collection are highly intellectual and inventive they play and invent to reinforce the idea that sound exploration is what is at the root of everything they do and that is open to everyone. So the hopes of his broad musical outlook and appreciation is the idea that it will broaden someone else as well. His idea that "An essential part of the personality and musical potential for any musical instrument is the interface between the instrument and its player" is recognized by the musicians in his attempt to broadcast it through his publications and collections of their music. (Hopkin, pg. 8)
Bibliography
1. Hopkin, Bart. Gravikords Whirlies & Pyrophones, Ellipsis Arts, New York, New York.
1996.
2. http://windworld. com/emi/articles.htm
3. http://www.ninstones.com/g ravikord.html
4. http://www.pacific .net/~shakuhachi:/TOC-CM.html
5. http://www.p acific.net/~shakuhachi/CM-Hopkin-MID.html
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