My experimental musical instrument is finally complete. I call it the Chime Forest, because that is what it looks like and that is what it sounds like.
The chime forest consists of 18 glass vases. Each vase has an electric motor suspended above it that can be raised and lowered. The motors have various things attached to the ends that throw the rotation off balance and make the motors jiggle. When the motors are lowered, they collide with the vases, making a tone. Since the motors are unbalanced, they bounce off the vases and then collide again, creating a fairly regular but unpredictable rhythm.
The vases can be tuned by adding water to the inside; adding water lowers the pitch of the vase. Each vase can be tuned about an octave, so the instrument can be tuned to any desired scale. For this posting I've left out the water, since the vases already cover a pretty wide range of notes:
The only additional control is an on/off switch. This switch activates or deactivates the motors. The instrument can still be played even while the motors are off, but it won't have quite the same sustained rhythmic effect. One use of this switch is to pre-set the motors up or down, so that turning on the motors will activate a specific "chord", and turning it of will stop it.
Since the chime forest is a fairly large instrument, it has been designed for easy assembly and disassembly. The wooden frame can be assembled with no tools. The wiring still requires a screwdriver to attach, but a future revision might be to add plugs in place of the screw terminals.
Here is an example video showing the chime forest in action:
So it's time for the next phase of my instrument for Tim's CMT Creates: Music project (maybe part of the next phase will be to think of a name for the thing). My last post covered the basics of how the sound would be created: electric motors dangling and hitting beer bottles. Since then I went and got some nice big vases from the thrift store, so hopefully now I have a larger range for the instrument, with the vases being the low range and the beer bottles the high end.
Now to tackle the question, "how do you play it?"
The easiest thing to do would be to have motors dangling at a fixed place on each vessel, and then turn each motor on individually using a momentary switch (push button). Maybe I'll mock that up eventually and see how it goes.
What I chose to do this time is a bit more complicated; I built a quick and dirty frame (literally, quick and dirty) and hung each wire from two eye hooks. The motor is on one end of the wire, and there is a counterweight on the opposite end. You raise or lower the counterweight to put the motor where you want it. I spliced the power wiring to the middle of each wire, in between the eye hooks. I suppose it could have gone at the end with the counterweight, but that would have interfered a bit with playing the instrument.
Anyway, the motors are all on all of the time, and you raise and lower them to make contact with the water glasses. If you leave them there, they just keep sounding.
I had a problem last time with the bits of innertube fouling up on the end of the motors. After playing around a bit, it seems like the best sound is from the body of the motor hitting the glass, instead of whatever is on the end of the motor. So this time I am using electrical tape to hold a little screw on the shaft of the motor. The screw makes the motor imbalanced as it spins, which makes it wobble a bit and periodically strike the glass.
A couple motors had these nice wide round things attached to the motor shaft, so I was able to put a screw and nut directly onto that. I like that a lot better since it is a much sturdier connection.
Time to go back to the Old World: Istanbul! (yeah yeah Constantinople). Here is a really fun catchy song from and about Istanbul. And no, TMBG never covered it. This song is so catchy it has basically replaced "Bread and Cheese" as our house anthem these days.
This was a really fun tune to research, because it kept leading me to new things and different places. I first heard of this tune from Nao, who learned it from a guy he met at a party. He was learning from this version, called "Istanbul Kasap".
Well that is a pretty catchy song. But "Istanbul Kasap" is more of a description than a song title: Istanbul is of course the famous city in Turkey on the Bosporus, and a "kasap" is a kind of dance. "Kasap" means "Butcher". "Kasap Havasi" is "butcher dance", translated as "hasapiko".
Here's a video that nicely illustrates the old style hasapiko:
2.
More on that in a minute.
YouTube readily offers these for "Istanbul Kasap Havasi":
3.
4.
5.
Ok, so it's obviously a popular song, but what is it called? With a little help from Google Translate and Turkish Wikipedia, we find that this song is called "Exe Geia Panagia", or more accurately, "εχε γεια παναγια".
The melody of "Istanbul Kasap" comes toward the end of this version, at 2:10. That hasapiko example above is actually "Exe Geia Panagia". So, we have basically two different songs with the same name, but they often share a section or two.
Here is a version that has the "Exe Geia Panagia" part sandwiched between the "Kasap Havasi" bits:
8.
Here is my transcription, taken from the examples above:
Thematically, what have we got here? There are basically four themes, which I have creatively labelled A, B, C, and D. You can make two songs out of these, one song with themes A & B, the other with themes C & D. The whole tune is in maqam hijaz (hicaz), a.k.a. "phrygian dominant" or "ahava rabboh": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrygian_dominant_scale .
The "A" theme is the first theme you hear in most of these examples. Aside from some ornamental stuff, this theme is basically the same in all versions.
After the A theme, we have our choice of "B" themes. They are all variations on the same idea. In my transcription, I use them all! Theme "B1" is taken from recordings number and 4 and 6. It is the least complicated of all the B theme variations but it is still fun to play.
I only found the "B2" theme in that original recording. This one is weird in that it has a couple extra bars. But, the theme is nice and I like how it goes into major there for a bit.
The "B3" theme is from recordings 5, 7, and 8. This is the most dramatic variation, so I chose to put it after the "C" and "D" themes.
The "C" theme is the one that connects the two songs. Many versions, including no. 1 above, use this theme without the corresponding "D" theme. That is kind of weird actually, since in the lyrics to "Exe Geia Panagia", C is the verse and D is the chorus.
The "D" theme is a very short, joyful catchy theme, where we finally get to hear the title of the song: "Exe geia panagia, ta milisamé / Oneiro itané ta lismonisamé".
So in summary: |: A :||: B1 :||: A :||: B2 :||: C :||: D :||: C :||: D :||: C :||: D :||: A :||: B3 :||: A :|||
So now we had a fun song to play, but I was still wondering, what is this song about? Google Translate was not much help here. Fortunately I was able to get some great answers out of a friend of a friend. He gave a very nice lengthy explanation, as well as the translation of the lyrics:
Transliterated Greek lyrics:
Sto Galata psili brochi kei sta Tatabla bora Vasilissa ton koritsion einai i mavrofora. Vasilissa ton koritsion einai i mavrofora.
Eche geia panagia, ta milisamé Oneiro itané ta lismonisamé
Sto Galata tha pio krasi sto pera tha methiso Kei mesa sto Genti Koule kopela tha agapiso. Kei mesa sto Genti Koule kopela tha agapiso.
Eche geia panagia, ta milisamé Oneiro itané ta lismonisamé
Genti Koule kei Tharapia, Tatabla kei Nichori Afta ta tessera choria morfeinone thi poli. Afta ta tessera choria morfeinone thi poli.
Eche geia panagia, ta milisamé Oneiro itané ta lismonisamé
English Translation:
At Galata[1] a drizzle, and in Tatavla[2] heavy rain. The queen of girls is the one dressed in black[3] The queen of girls is the one dressed in black
Farewell to you Madonna[4], we talked it through, It was but just a dream, we forgot about it.
At Galata, I will drink wine, At Pera[5] I’ll get drunk. And inside Genti Koule[6], A girl I will fall in love with. And inside Genti Koule, A girl I will fall in love with.
Farewell to you Madonna, we talked it through, It was but just a dream, we forgot about it.
Genti Koule and Tharapia, Tatavla and Nichori Those four villages[7] make the City[8] beautiful. Those four villages make the City beautiful.
Farewell to you Madonna, we talked it through, It was but just a dream, we forgot about it.
Notes:
1. An area in Istanbul - see Galata bridge and tower.
2. A posh neighbourhood in Istanbul.
3. Referring to that crucified guy’s mother
4. Panageia: lit. the ultimate saint - referring to that gal again
5. Another area?
6. Genti Koole means "seven towers" in Turkish, and refers to the castle which was situated within the City walls and was throughout history, a treasury during early Ottoman rule, and a prison, for which it is mostly known. I believe there was also a Greek prison up north that was referred to as Genti Koule for its harsh conditions. The song probably refers to the area where it is situated.
7. Suburbs, boroughs
8. The City: Long before New York, Istanbul (Or Constantinople in Greek) was the cultural and economical capital of the known world. The metropolis which substituted Rome. The cultural inheritance of Istanbul is very rich because of the intersection of cultures for many centuries. Greeks have a particular relationship with it, for many reasons. Firstly because in 1453, it was conquered by the Ottomans, and it became Muslim. It was not Greek in the first place, it was basically Roman; what today is called Byzantine. But in the collective conscious of the orthodox Christians it has remained that the Turks (Muslim) took it away from us Greeks (but basically orthodox Christians).
In modern popular culture, or traditional music and lyrics from the past two centuries, there is a reminiscence of the City, also because modern Greek populations living in the city (probably in some of the areas referred to in this song) were extradited from their homes in various phases throughout the 19th and 20th century. More recently, in the ’50s almost all Greeks that lived in the City (we call them Citizens here) were deported to Greece, unless they became Muslim. This was basically the Cypriots fault, who were fighting a guerilla war with the Turkish population in Cyprus involving many terrorist attacks. So the Turks said, your friends killed our friends, so fuck off.
Anyway. The City is always revered by the Greeks, because it was probably, after classical Athens, their brightest moment (even though it was built by Romans speaking Greek).
However after some research I am afraid I will disappoint you.
The song refers to a treaty after the first world war (1918), which declared the truce between the allies (Greece was amongst them) and the Ottoman empire. This was favorable for the allies, a triumph of British politics, which brought the Ottoman administration in chaos and basically in the hands of the Brits who gained control of the wider area. The song was a celebration song, since the Greek population of the City had been oppressed by strict measures during the war, enforced by the Turks, and with this treaty the gained some civil liberties and privileges they were deprived from.
The chorus initially was "Exe geia, Panta Geia". Although translated as "Farewell", "Exe geia" means "have health", and "Panta Geia", "Always health", so "have health, always health". "Panta geia" was paraphrased "Panageia", because of the reference of the previous lyric the one dressed in black.
What this chorus is saying, is "Goodbye and Farewell, we talked it through (we resolved the issue), it was but just a dream now we forgot about it (i.e. the hard times are gone)."
Kind thanks to Wikipedia in Greek, and to Pantelis Aibaliotis!
I just transcribed “La Paloma”, by Sebastián Yradier. This is a good first song to write about, since supposedly it is the most-played song in the world. There’s even a documentary film about it. Like many of the songs I love, I first heard this on Looney Tunes. The name of this particular cartoon is “Crow’s Feat”. The song starts at about 1:06. They only sing it for about 30 seconds and when I was a kid I always wished they’d just keep on singing, since when they go down into the corns fields they just run into trouble with that smarty pantalones hunter.
Yradier composed “La Paloma” (“The Dove”) around 1860, so about 150 years ago, and since then it has spread all over the world. This song has been played so many times and there are a zillion different versions out there on the internet, but surprise, most of them are crappy :) My favorite so far is this recording of Dr. Eloy Gomes. It’s a very informal recording and performance but I think it is beautiful. Here is a more fun, upbeat version by Paco De Lucia. I didn’t find a version out there with the original lyrics (“Cuando salí de la Habana…”) that I cared to listen to more than once. The lyrics are very nice but it’s really the melody that carries this tune. Here are a few more decent and fun recordings: Banda Zapadores de Mexico, James Sia, Chubby Checker.
This song was easy to transcribe, since it is pretty simple and there are already a bunch of scores out there. But, they are all arranged for piano or guitar or whatever, and I prefer lead sheets since they are small and flexible. So here is my transcription.
I transcribe a fair number of songs, mostly so I can learn them and teach them to my friends so we can play together. Usually they are well-known tunes and I am making lead sheets. It is pretty fun trying to write down the “essence” of a song. Of course you can't really capture that on paper but the trick is to provide enough so that the player can bring it out later. In the process I learn a lot about the history of a song, and I usually find some pretty interesting interpretations. I figured I’d post my findings here so other people can read about them too. More later :)
So I promised Tim I'd make an instrument for his CMT Creates : music project. He's got one well underway but he's already committed to at least four and probably more. So what to make? These instruments are supposed to be experimental and made from found / scavenged material as much as possible, so the question was, what do I have that can go into making a musical instrument?
Well, one of my hobbies is electronics, and I have collected quite a large amount of stuff from taking apart various electronic gizmos. In particular, I have a big box of electric motors and a whole bunch of wire. Sounds like a good place to start:
How does one make sound with a motor? You can make the motor spin at a certain speed, and if it's loud enough you'll hear a tone that's related to the motor speed. There's plentyofexamples on the internet of people doing this. It's neat, but it's not exactly visually appealing, it's kind of complicated, and it doesn't really sound that good.
My next idea was to attach something to the motor spindle and have that thing agitate a tuned object. I thought about strings, like piano strings or violin strings, but we don't have any of those around that I'd be willing to spare. Glancing around the kitchen shows what we do have: empty beer bottles and dirty dishes. So it wasn't a strain to think of hitting beer bottles with water inside, and that's what I am going with.
The green stuff in there is just water with some food coloring so you can see the water level. I was able to get eleven notes from the Corona bottles, which is pretty good, just shy of one octave. I think the shape of the bottle limits the pitches; the jump in water levels from the lowest note to the next higher one is very big, and it ends up on the other side of the bell shape of the bottle. The other notes change more gradually. For a full-fledged instrument I'll probably need a variety of shapes to get a good range.
The motors are pretty small and they don't have much torque, so whatever is attached to them can't be very big. I've been playing with a little piece of bicycle innertube taped to the motor. It's easy to get and easy to fabricate. There are some problems, but it's working ok for now.
To add a little bit of randomness to the sound, my idea is to dangle a motor directly above each bottle. The motor will bounce around the bottle, creating a quick varied rhythm. I haven't made a jig to hold the motors yet; that's the next step. The length of the wire suspending the motor will make a big difference; with a long wire the motor can bounce pretty far off the bottle, and even into the neighboring ones. That's ok for an ambient sound machine or something like a wind chime, but the idea is that this is an instrument; bouncing around into neighboring notes is a bit too random.
You can see from the video that the rubber on the end of the motor fouls up on itself at the end there. Improvements are forthcoming :) The motors could be controlled easily enough with push buttons, but I'm still thinking about the human interface to this instrument. Something that moves the wire closer to the instrument would give the player more control, but it might be tricky to have any sort of accuracy. I'll leave that for later :)
