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| Wooden Synthesizer | ||
|---|---|---|
| Author(s): | Tristan Perich |  |
| Instructor: | Viemeister, Tucker | |
| Class: | Introduction to Industrial Design | |
| URL: | http://www.tristanperich.com/art/woodensynthesizer/ | |
| Documents: | Wooden Synthesizer (Photograph by Tristan Perich)(JPEG) | |
| Keywords: | Instruments, Just Intonation, Synthesizer, Musique Concrete, Glass Armonica, Benjamin Franklin, Pythagoras, Pitch Systems, Overtones | |
| Rotating wooden mechanical synthesizer madness! | ||
| Rotating wooden tabs create musical pitches when touched... A center dowel spins at 2000 rpm, about 33hz. Attached are thirteen wooden discs , the first with 12 protruding wooden tabs, the second with 13, up to 24 tabs on the last. Touching the first disc with a paper card creates a pitch of around 400hz, close to middle G, the remaining discs forming an octave of notes. Different "picks," such as fabric or rubber, create different timbres. The octave is in just intonation, with the pitches representing the 11th to 23th overtones above the dowel’s frequency, represented by the fractions 1/1, 13/12, 7/6, 15/12, 4/3, …, 23/12, 2/1. (http://www.tristanperich.com) | ||
| Background: | Tristan Perich (ITP '07) (http://www.tristanperich.com) is an artist and musician who studied music, math, and computer science at Columbia University as an undergraduate. While at Columbia, Perich was able to do a small study on mathematical pitch systems generated by a starting pitch and whole-number ratios of its frequency. Such systems, sometimes refered to as just (or pure) intonation, originates in studies by Pythagoras and have been used by composers like La Monte Young, Terry Riley and Harry Patch. Wooden Synthesizer is admittedly partly ridiculous, but it is something that is a couple of years in the making, and has a unique quality of sound. It is also an interesting blend of digital and analog, since the sound produced is analog, but it is generated by a set integral number of tabs, so the sound is almost 1-bit in origin. | |
| Audience: | Pretty much anyone. Zach Layton did a wonderful rendition of Yankee Doodle or something on it that made people laugh. | |
| User Scenario: | Viewers can interact with the piece through various media, such as paper or cloth, which they simply touch lightly against the spinning tabs and sound is produced. Hopefully music people will find something interesting in its sound, aesthetic and design, and that non-music people may become more interested because of its novel nature. | |
| Technical System Description: | One 2000 rpm AC motor. 13 wooden discs with tabs sticking out, all mounted on one wooden down that spins. The object has a wooden base and sits on a table while played. Depending on the material used to play it, it can be loud or soft, and the ambient hum is relatively quiet. The wooden parts were fabricated by laser cutter at ITP. One outlet is need. | |
| Project References, Research and Literature: | An interesting related project that someone has since told me about is Benjamin Franklin's Glass Armonica (http://sln.fi.edu/qa99/attic9/index.html), which has glass bowls that rotate on a dowel and create pitches when touch by the finger with some water. | |
| Conclusions: | I was surprised by how closely the scale of the synthesizer matches the regular chromatic scale, though I suppose I suspected it. It was still delightful to plug in and I have been experimenting with its timbres. | |