Composing With Sounds : Musique Concrète
all sounds can lead to music
The resources for Composing With Sounds ...
"Miniature" Percussion
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Beaten, patted, tapped, brushed, shaken, not stirred!
A collection of [mostly] very small percussive intriments, held in the hand, and played with a variety of hand/finger strokes, small-ish beaters and a jazz/blues drummer's wire brush.
Instruments included: egg shakers, a mini monkey drum, some of the smallest tuned djembe drums we could find, an ornamental bell from a desktop pencil sharpener, some small brass hamdbells, castanets in the form of a "clapper" from a protest rally, and among the largest were a 5" triangle, a 5.5" cowbell and a 12" rain stick [huge compared to some of the other instruments, but about the smallest we could find that still "did the job"!]
Apart from the djembe drums and the wire brush [professional quality], most of these intruments were very economical, either from our local music store, or The Works or similar discount book-and-craft shops. Some of our intruments [the pencil sharpener and hand bells, for example] were found in charity shops or on bric-a-brac stalls.
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The Miniature Percussion sessions were recorded using a pair of cardioid-response condenser microphones, mounted on boom stands, positioned with the boom arms at 90 from each other, so that the mics could be positioned with the lower one facing directly upwards, and the upper mic facing directly downwards, about 60cm immediately above the lower mic. In this way a useful space was created in which the various small percussive instruments could be shaken (not stirred), tapped, patted, beaten and brushed, with the microphones capturing the sound both above and below each time. Whilst performing these sessions I wore headphones, connected to the recording device, so that I could hear the sounds captured by each mic, one panned to the left, and the other to the right. As I became more attracted to the way a particular combination of instrument and beater [or hand/finger beat] sounded in one or other mic, so I experimentd moving a little closer to that mic - always being very careful that neither instrument nor beater actually made contact with the mic - although with some of the smallest instruments, I ended-up working carefully, only a centimetre or so above the lower mic, on occasions. Experiment: Some condenser mics have a -10dB attenuation switch - handy in this situation, if a few of your instruments are noticably louder than others. Caution: If you want to use a close-mic technique on larger drums, then dynamic mics like the classic Shure SM57, or similar will capture the sound close-up without fear of damage. |
[Recording sessions currently under-way to create the sounds for this page; these will be uploaded soon]
Check back soon; we will have more snippets of sounds, soundbytes and other aural delights for you to download [for free!] take away, and work on ... and a few more examples of what can be done ...