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Music

Trashy music

Two CTA cards and a microphone (and some miscellaneous metal and wood)

Still image from video for “Discarded.” Music: D. Hampton, Video: P. Pieri. Click the image to link to the video.

People have used found objects to make music for years, and have certainly made some beautiful music - think of the African kalimba, or thumb-piano, often made from a cigar box, straightened wire, and pieces of pop cans.

The goal for my entry to the “Sustainable City” Soundtrack competition was not to be totally original or to write a piece that overtly tried to address sustainability, but was in itself sustainable… and a little rough around the edges, like good found objects tend to be.
The method chosen expanded my own conception of musical instruments to include not just everyday objects, but those objects which I might typically ignore and whose useful life has supposedly ended.

Rules

I set the following four simple rules for myself:

1. During my walk from my apartment to public transportation during the two weeks since receiving the call for entries on April 5, 2007, collect one obviously discarded object per day not intended for music-making (ex.: no guitars and amps people just set in an alley… as nice as that might be to find).
2. Select the most “musical” of them.
3. Have at it.
4. Have fun.

So, with an unusual piece of painted metal, an old metal carpenters’ scribe, (what looks like) an electrical wiring component, two plastic CTA transit cards, and a corrugated cardboard box lid, I set out to make a piece.
The following is the result, which was chosen for the “Sustainable City” Soundtrack and which will be featured at the Chicago Green Festival (I’ll even be performing something along these lines live at the Sustainable City Showcase at The Kinetic Playground 7:00pm Wednesday, April 18, 2007).

Enjoy, and, the next time you’re walking through an alley and kick something that makes a cool sound… maybe save it?

Screenings

JUST ADDED!
The video for Discarded by filmmaker Pierakis Pieri was recently shown at the Sacramento International Film Festival 2008.