Sound Pics

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A mysterious digital instrument out of Queens Mary University's Music and DSP Research. Few months ago, everyone from performers, artists to musicians were asked to contribute to a research exploring touch based digital instruments. More details will be revealed later this year!

Must Visit!

This is a mysterious sound sculpture currently placed at the entrance of LCC, which I have yet to find out who has been done by. Each guitar is delicately equipped with a motor, which when spins, automatically strums each instrument. This is controlled from downstairs, where there are triggers.

Soundmirrors by Rob Olines, with soundtrack provided by Douglas Benford. This is still going in Watermans Gallery till the 15 Novemeber. Read more about it in the link provided. It is quite interesting because It makes sound directional, a lot like ultrasonic speakers.

The Cave of Sounds is an interactive sound installation exploring the power of music to bind individuals together and the visceral urge to use technology to broadcast our identity. It is formed of eight original electronic instruments, each designed and created over a period of ten months by a member of London’s Music Hackspace as a personal and interactive embodiment of the ideas and mind of its creator. This video documents the first two exhibits of the work at the Barbican 19-26 August 2013 and the Victoria and Albert Museum 21 September 2013. Check out http://caveofsounds.com for more details about the project and future exhibitions. The Cave of Sounds was created during a Sound and Music Embedded residency with the Music Hackspace by Tim Murray-Browne working with Music Hackspace members Dom Aversano, Sus Garcia, Wallace Hobbes, Daniel Lopez, Tadeo Sendon, Alex Sonom, Panagiotis Tigas and Kacper Ziemianin. Documentation film by Mind the Film - http://mindthefilm.co.uk. Many thanks for support to Duncan Chapman, Atau Tanaka, Hannah Bujic, Nick Sherrard, Jean-Baptiste Thiebaut, Martin Klang and Jenny Attwater. Embedded is funded by Esmee Fairbairn and realised with support from Arts Council England.

Landscape, Max Eastely, 2012. Canvas, Acrylic, Steel fragments, motor, magnets This delicate sound sculpture is operated by a motor fitted with magnets, which causes the movements of the metal fragments across the canvas surface. Their perpetual and automatic movements creates sounds with a near-silent subtlety. The interaction between the steel and canvas, and the resulting sound, reveal a new quality to these familiar materials. Originally created to be installed within a Georgian fireplace, Landscape echoes the 18th century practice of placing a landscape-painted screen in the fireplace during the summer months.

What you see here are very neatly designed clip-on sensors that simply can be wait for it... clipped on virtually any object in mind to be able to control parameters on the computer. This works exactly like any MIDI device out there. Each of the above are equipped with different sensing capabilities hence their names. For example Movement contains an accelerometer (like ones you have in your phone) which will respond to your movement while Intimacy is an infra-red sensor detecting how close you are to it. So as MIDI devices, these can be set to modulate anything you can imagine in your DAW environment, which is very handy for live performance. It is not just handy, It adds a huge amount of interactivity and gives people something to watch in your electronic music performance. These are currently wired to a main box unit so they can be fed to the computer as a single unit/cable. Neil Merry; the designer of these instruments hopes to make these wireless soon; as the way It feels they should always be due to their small size and their purpose so artists can freely move around the stage. These devices are better be seen on this demonstration video. I saw these personally in a demonstration, and I have to say, the concept is absolutely great because of Its flexibility and the way It allows for many creative uses even outside the music field, but only if made wireless. If wireless could be implemented cheaply, and sold for under £50 budget a piece, I bet these will actually sell well commercially, allowing for interesting modular live setup. This project was featured at Fast Co Design and Dezeen Magazine. More info. around the project can be found at Neil's website.

As part of London Design Festival, Yuri Suzuki; renowned artist for his awesome sound installations all around the world has created Garden of Russolo. Basically the horns record you when you talk into them and then output a manipulated version of what you said. Each horn has a different effect. For example one of the horns allow you to speed up or slow down your speech much like tape rewinding or fast forwarding, except using a huge wind up key. Another creates a song out of your voice/speech by looping, pitch shifting and so on. It is a very fun exhibit, apart from the way you awkwardly have to bend down to speak into the horn. MUST check it out, go to it, It is at V&A in London from 14 to 22nd Sept 2013.

When played, the tweeting piano types up the tweet according to the keys you press and then when you're finished, It sends out the tweet on It's own @TweetingPiano account. It's a very cool concept that very neatly done by MA students at LCC. You can find out more about it and the team behind it here. Make sure you check out the video on vimeo here. P.S. The exhibition ended on 10th Sept 2013, but one can follow their twitter for latest news, they will be probably be exhibiting this more around London this year.

These are installations in the final year show from Graduates of LCC 2013 BA Sound Arts and Design. I'll get the names soon. Third pic shows metal plates which when sprayed make a sound (they are piezo miced and go through to a mixer then to speakers), very fun and practical. Fourth pic are what looks like quartz rocks, They were used with ultrasonic speakers hung from ceiling projecting sound onto them with UV light projected onto them. These looked and sounded awsome.

These are trippy photos of a Radioplay arranged by Ed Baxter of Resonance FM for students at London College of Communication studying Sound Arts and Design. It was recorded over two days. As pictured, there are the foley people who create the sound of for example vomit live. There is the mixing room, and the musicians area where the background theme music is played. It is possible the radioplay will be aired on radio throughout the course of this year (although not sure!).

These photographs of instruments used by ancient Babylon photographed from Louvre in Paris of course! Descriptions follow the instrument. Sorry for the blurry pic, but Its pretty much a Harp but alot more roughly built. Thanks for the french for keeping our ancient treasures, we would have done a terrible job.

These are miscellaneous pictures. The first two are from inside a Kawai Baby Grand at JS Pianos in London. The third picture is a piano at the epic St. Pancras station which can be played by anyone! How awsome is that, just pop over there, and show off your skills. Last picture of a recording session I did for a pianist at St. Mary Le-Bow in Cheapside, London. This church has stunning reverberation and was planning to record my album Resonance there, but that didn't go to plan.

I had the pleasure of photographing and recording a session with these talented and highly experienced musicians. They are called Trio Aporia. Their music can be described as a modern twist on....actually you just have to listen to it. This was photographed at the Royal College of Music which possess some really beautifull instruments such as the Harpsichord above.

These are some exhibits from Notting Hill May Festival 2013 in London which included an evening at St. John's Church near Holland Park. The evening included electro-acoustic performances that utilised the great space provided. At St. John's, there is an ongoing exhibit explaining the restoration process of the Pipe Organ pictured beside, simply stunning work.

This is a collection of photographs taken from The Musical Museum in Kew Bridge, London. This is a hidden gem that not many Londoners know about. For all instrument, sound, musicians, enthusiasts out there, this is a must visit. I know It's a little off centre London, but It's totally worth it.