THE INSTRUMENT

is an instrument to be played and worshipped.

THE SCORE

The Gambit

Requires Two Individuals and a Back up.

THE MAKING

of The Instrument


The Original Starting Materials:

From the name of the assignment, “Vibrating the air and the small bones inside of our heads.”, I immediately thought: WIND INSTRUMENT. 

My initial idea for this project was to make a flute by slicing and merging the segments of an ice cube tray. I also thought about carving my rock into a percussion instrument. However, these ideas felt too conventional. I wanted something more intriguing, and upon discovering a garden spigot, I began thinking, “What could I do with this?”.

The Spigot Spin off:

From the garden spigot, I started looking at other hose parts. And with a wind instrument in mind, I found a collection of accumulated glass jars from my friend’s house. My idea was to put water in glass bottles where I could blow air into them and create a whistling sound. The image above depicts my updated materials.

Version I

The first two images (above, left to right) was me playing around with the assembly of  my music instrument. I was looking at how different hose parts fit in the jars. The third image is my 1st iteration.

The above video shows me playing Version I of my instrument. I noticed when changing the tightness of the spigot, it also changes the pitch of the whistle sound. I wasn’t very good at bringing out the whistle (but my friend who refused to be recorded was able to), therefore please imagine a sound similar to the flute when you watch the video.

Version II

While still thinking about how I could change the pitch of  my instrument by tightening the spigot, I made my 2nd iteration. In the above image you can see I found a thin cylindrical hose attachment that could tighten and loosen by twisting. I thought this looked more sleek and minimalistic compared to the spigot.  

You can change the pitch of the whistle sound by tightening or loosening the cylindrical hose bit.

After playing around,  I thought Version II was still too simple. I wanted something more complex. So I started thinking, “How can I make an instrument that can plan more than one pitch simultaneously?”,  “How can I tune my instrument?”.  From there, Version III was created.

Version III

The above video shows how water flows between the two glass jars, through the spigot. Please note: I had to hold the components together as nothing was stuck down yet, I wanted to keep experimenting.

Version III allows water to flow between the two bottles through the spigot, thus changing the pitch when you hit the glass with a spoon. You can use the handle of the spigot as where you hold the instrument too. I quite liked this idea, but I wasn’t satisfied with how I could only produce two sounds from this version.  I wanted another sound component that was completely different to what I currently have.

Version IV

To play Version IV, you can twist the dial, clink the glass with a spoon and blow into the spigot to create a whistling sound.

I found a hose timer clock thing that could go tick tick tick. It kind of reminded me of a metronome so I really wanted to incorporate that into my instrument. It also had a cool twisting sound when you twisted the dial. I thought this addition was a good idea as it made my instrument more complex and interesting. Even aesthetically, it looks cooler than the previous iterations.

After looking at Version IV for a while, it kind of reminded me of a Bop It toy so I wanted to experiment towards that idea with my further iterations.

The Turning Point

It was at this point, my friend’s Dad found out I was making an instrument out of waste and recommended a YouTube channel called “FromScratch”. FromScratch is a NZ group that mainly makes percussion pieces by sculpturing with all types of waste and/or non-waste materials from scratch. After watching a few of their videos, I decided to create a percussion instrument along with a music video similar to their aesthetic.

Version V

Version V includes a plastic compressor thing that I found at the back of my pantry. You can create a squiching sound by compressing the plastic component. You can also use a spoon and scrape the compressor to create a sound similar to a Güiro. Although Version V loses the whistling sound component, I much prefer the addition of the plastic compressor than without, as now my instrument can create an increased number of sounds compared to previous iterations.

The video above shows the sounds created from: Twisting of the dial, metronome sound, squishing the plastic compressor and clinking the glass. Other sounds Version V can make that are not included in the video: scraping of the plastic compressor, hitting the plastic compressor with a spoon.

Version VI

Please note: At the time I forgot to put on the plastic compressor component on my instrument in this image, but it is included in Version VI.

For Version VI, I switched out the water contained glass jar to a glass jar with a nail in it. You can now shake the instrument to produce a rattling sound. You can also still get the “ping” sound from Version V from hitting the glass with a spoon.  Version VI allows more free movement of the instrument without worrying about water travelling up into the plastic compressor component. This means the player will be able to dance and jump while playing the instrument.

I decided Version VI was the best version because I thought it was the most practical. You could move around with it aggressively without worrying about spillage or breakage. You also did not need to clean out the insides of Version VI as it does not have a water component. Version VI also produced the most different sounds, which I thought was one of the most critical aspects of an instrument.

From here, Version VI became The Instrument.

 The Instrument – Final Refinements

As you can see above, I experimented with different objects inside the glass component to see the different possible types of rattling sounds. I found that a battery was too big, you could not create a fast continuous clinking sound. The beer bottle cap created quite a pretty high pitched clinking sound but I still thought the beads were the best. The beads created a gentle rain like sound, similar to maracas.

I then started thinking about how my instrument could be held by the player. While doing so, I realised that the spigot could be adjusted to suit different hand sizes, I have demonstrated this in the above video. 

The Instrument can be held in different ways to suit what component will be played. For example if there were three of The Instrument being played by three different people, they may want to split up what is being played. One person may focus on the glass component, another focus is shaking the beads and another could be to play the plastic compressor. Different components could be played with more comfort by different holding positions. I have demonstrated this in the video below.

Above: Different ways of holding The Instrument to suit the component you will play.

Extra notes:

I decided to add a piece of cloth between the spigot component and the glass component of The Instrument as I didn’t want to permanently glue them together. By not using glue, it means the player has the option to switch the objects in the glass component to create different types of sounds. 

I opted not to paint my object as I already liked how it looked. It looks like a contraption from a Scifi movie and I didn’t want to take away that element of mystery and authenticity. I also thought the current look of  The Instrument would suit the theme of my music video very well.

The Instrument – Final sounds

THE MAKING

Of the Score

First Draft

The image above is my First Draft. It depicts me breaking down components of my instrument into symbols. I wanted my score to be less abstract, to have linkage and logic to it. My goal was to create a score somewhat like a step by step or scientific diagram. You can see I tried to keep my symbols simple and straight to the point.

Second Draft

Red: Player 1, Black: Player 2, Green: Back up

In the Second Draft, I began playing The Instrument, trying to come up with a song, whilst documenting it with symbols. I wanted my score to perfectly reflect what is being played. As you can see above, I used three different colours to represent three different players. There are also numbers to represent how many times each sound is to be made.

The Score is called The Gambit as I wanted the song to sound like two people fighting with each other. The Back up is the peace maker.

After reflecting on the Second Draft, I thought it was too hard to follow and read for first time players. I thought it needed to be sectioned better to show the flow of the music in an easier to understand way. 

Third Draft

As you can see above, the Third Draft is much easier to follow than the Second Draft. There is much better structure and the score makes more sense logically. I also experimented with simplifying some more symbols so that the player can read the score faster and easier. The Third Draft also contains the entire piece played in my music video. 

From here, I made my final draft.

Final Draft

In my Final Draft, I converted the black and red to a diamond and square. I took inspiration from piano sheet music, where there are instructions for left hand and right hand. In this case the right hand is the diamond player and the left hand is the square player. This score is to be read like a piano sheet music, where you play the diamond and square bits at the same time if they are in line with each other. The only thing that differs is the addition of a “back up” which is in grey. The grey is to be played by a third person. 

Final Score

I then recorded myself playing this score three seperate times, pretending to be three different players (the diamond player, the square player and the back up). I uploaded these audios onto Adobe Premiere Pro and layered them together, making minor edits to make sure the beats align together.​​​​​​​

Above: Layered audio of my score.

THE MAKING

Of the Music Video

The above two images were my initial ideas for the music video. I was inspired by the old black and white film videos of FromScratch on Youtube, so I wanted to do something similar. I came up with these storyboards before I finalised my score, therefore the atmosphere of my video differs to these ideas.

After creating my score, I wanted to head towards a more eery and odd direction. I wanted something more fast paced and disjointed than the smooth slow orchestral atmosphere of FromScratch. The Jazz aesthetic was also not used, as my score was definitely not jazz. However I still really liked the black and white style that I originally came up with and the idea of a one source lighting, so I took those and ran with it.

I also had to take into consideration of the time frame of this assignment. Thus I decided on a deliberately simple and abstract video concept as it would work the best off a simple backdrop (my back yard and a chair). Contributing a creepiness but also humorous element to the video. I made sure that the success of the video would be dependant on the editing, not the cinematography. As you can see below, the set up of the music video was not very complex.

Above: I edited my video on Adobe Premiere Pro.

Final Three Pictures

I chose image one (from left to right) because I think it captures the essence and the type of atmosphere The Instrument exudes. The Instrument looks fierce, mysterious and stiff, an unspoken type of intimidation.

Image two was chosen as I wanted a close up of the most interesting part of The Instrument which is the dial and compressor. I think the dial creates the most impactful sound out of all the other sounds that The Instrument makes. The compressor is also the most complex part of The Instrument as it can create the most number of different sounds.

Lastly, image three was chosen as I wanted a clear shot of the entire music instrument.  I deliberately placed the spoon parallel to it to give off a rigid energy, to depict the weirdness of The Instrument.

Final Remarks

In conclusion, I think the quality of my video, score and photographs reflect well on the time I was given for this assignment and the restrictive circumstances I encountered due to covid. I am quite proud of myself as I caught covid and still powered through the work load sufficiently well before the extension given to me. Maybe it was because I really enjoy making short films/music videos.

Something I would change next time round would be to film a more complex music video. I have a huge interest in film making so it would be interesting to see what I could’ve come up with if I had more time and didn’t catch covid. Having covid was a huge struggle as I had to isolate and couldn’t ask my flatmates to film extra footage of me. I had to work off the one hour rushed footage that I took from the week before, which extended the editing time (because it made it harder to sequence the clips due to less options to play with).

Overall, this assignment was super interesting to me as I’ve never worked with waste when making my own art or designing. It confirmed the idea that you don’t have to use the “best materials” or “pretty” things to make something thought provoking, innovative or fascinating.  I think being able to craft with what most people may deem as useless or trash is an extremely underrated skill as it gives you the ability to open up a whole new world of ideas and creations.  For example if I were a prop designer and this assignment was to create a weird instrument for a movie, I would have never been able to draw/come up with this instrument from the top of my head. Experimenting with waste and researching other existing projects that utilise waste was a critical component to creating this instrument. I’ve found that you can come up with more original and authentic designs through working with waste.