Via unconsumption:
For a project known as Scrapheap Orchestra, some top instrument makers in the UK transformed junk, including pieces of broken furniture, into 44 instruments for members of the BBC Concert Orchestra to play.
The quest to build an orchestra of instruments out of rubbish is more than just a musical spectacle - in the construction of these instruments we delve into the history of instrument making and the science of music, why different instruments are made the way they are, why some designs haven’t changed for hundreds of years and why, when played together, the sound of an orchestra is unlike anything else on earth. (via BBC Four)
Next week, BBC Four will broadcast a 90-minute documentary that follows the project, which features the orchestra performing Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture on the scrap instruments at the 2011 BBC Proms. (Click here for broadcast info.)
For project photos, see Gramophone’s gallery, source of the above photo of orchestra members with instruments and conductor Charles Hazlewood. (Photo credit: BBC/Chris Christodoulou)
On a similar (instruments-made-from-junk) note, check out the Unconsumption posts on San Francisco’s Junkestra and New York Philharmonic’s percussion-from-junk exploration.
Via unconsumption:
Twenty-year-old David Rocha dreams of one day becoming a professional violinist, but for now he plays for the community of Sao Miguel, a poor neighborhood outside Brazil’s largest city, Sao Paolo.
The violin he uses is fashioned out of old wood that he found at a garbage dump. The drawers of an old closet are now being used to play symphonies by Bach and Beethoven.
Rocha learned to make string instruments at a free workshop in his neighborhood’s social center.
With no money to buy good quality wood, Rocha began scavenging through the dumps near his home.
He has inspired other students to do the same.
Now, Rocha’s hand-made instruments are selling for up to $500 dollars and he says he feels honored to be able to help the environment by recycling trash into art.
Via junkculture:
The Art of Un-Thinking
Artist Nancy Fouts creates intricate and original pieces of art from unlikely combinations of things…more here
Via murketing:
Ken Butler’s hybrid musical instrument sculptures (via Junkculture: Hybrid Visions)
Intriguing iPhone use, per NYT: digital music making.
Will mobile phone orchestras supplant traditional instrumental ensembles?
Will such orchestras resonate with audiences — and with classically trained musicians and musicians of all music genres?
Key quote from the story: “… anyone with a cellphone could become a musician.”
For the classical music industry, the ability for anyone to create music on mobile phones could help to enhance the general public’s overall appreciation for music and the music-making process.
A potentially useful audience-development tool? Perhaps.
Will you download a Smule app (or other companies’ apps) onto your phone?
(ahem) Financial instruments:
Story from TIME today: String Theory: Investing in High-End Violins.
An updated study of classical-instrument valuations shows that “violins may be among the most stable of investments.”
