Project 4: How To Play the Spoons: Creating My Own Musical Instrument
I steered away a little from the “useless” artifice theme with this project. I was thinking about how I have absolutely no musical talent. When I was in elementary school in Belarus, teachers in my music classes always made me play the triangle or wooden spoons (a traditional Russian folk instrument). The idea of a xylophone made out of spoons sprung on me very randomly and when I search for a similar item on line and couldn’t find anything remotely close, I knew I had my next project for 7×7.
Result: YouTube video below + screen shot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjhEKyPVSqQ
Materials used and their limitations:
Spoons, beads, wire, aluminum foil, cardboard box, Atto I: Dell’invito trascorsa è gia l’orà? from Verdi’s La Traviata. It was extremely hard to keep the spoons on top of each other. I had to do some complicated twisting with wires to keep them in place. Spoons without curved handles didn’t produce as much sound as I had hoped. I wish there was a bigger range on sounds, but overall, this was fun to make and this could possibly be a more extensive project in the future once I learn how to use Arduino.
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