Feedback from a peer

Friday I took my friend, colleague and respected musician, Dr. Brett Reed through my exhibit at PVCC and got some very valuable feedback on the work. I was excited to do this because he was a big factor in my pursuing this direction early on. He shared with me many examples of non traditional musical instruments, and instruments made from found objects, and instruments made by artists. This helped me tremendously. Brett also gave me lots of information on key factors in musical instrument design, such as paying attention to the points of attachment being close to node points of the vibration of the material so as to not inhibit the vibration.

Here are some of the observations Brett made about certain pieces in the show:

Watermelon Fly Trap-Thickest strings need to be longer in order to have room to vibrate. Try removing bridge for thicker strings, or creating seperate bridge for thicker strings, or just use thinner strings for more sound as is. For nails, try using differing sizes to make variations in pitch.

Seed Stalk Trio-Try wrapping foam around metal support in order to allow clay tube to vibrate freely. Also, manipulate metal leaves for sound variations by making some thicker.

Chrysanthemum Garden-Larger bowls sound best.

For all with nails fired in place, try differing sizes to vary pitch, or make nails insertable after firing to not have to worry about firing melting nails.

Decide where to draw the line between making artistic objects and musical instruments.

The last comment is very important. I want to make objects that use sound as another aspect of the piece, not the reason for the piece to exist. This means I won't make my own versions of guitars, drums, horns, etc. I will try to make, as I have tried in this show, to make objects which are expressive artistically as forms of communication through sight, touch and sound. I haven't gotten to the point of consideration of their taste or smell at this point, but you never know.