Music and Motion - Chime Carillon
Wednesday, January 6, 2010 at 12:45PM In early 1987 I showed my work at the Baltimore ACC show. By chance we were located near Woodstock Percussion and Gary Kvistad. I checked back in my journal to find out exactly what year this took place in and found this quote,
" I got a couple of good ideas at the show. The most interesting is that of trying to make a sculpture using the chime tubes from the booth next to us, Woodstock Percussion. I spent all week listening to them and I thing a nice, gentle "Chime Machine" can be designed."
I spent about a year playing with the idea and in 1988 introduced Chime Carillon. It was a challenging piece. I wanted the mechanism to ring the chime tubes gently and in random arrangements but I also wanted the sculpture to have enough motion to be visually interesting.
I sold out the edition long ago but kept the initial prototype piece up in my studio gallery because it was such a rewarding design challenge and I still like the sounds it makes. It never fails to get a good bit of attention from visitors.
Reader Comments (2)
Hi ! Neat work... I wonder the randomness. I heard it was making different tones after each cycle but I wonder whether this route of randomness is the same with each setting up the lever..I hope I made myself comprehensible :)
Posted @ Monday, February 01, 2010 6:27 PM by kerem
At the end of each cycle from 0 to 4 of the tubes hit the single striker. It changes with each cycle.
This is not as random as having an independent striker for each tube. I tried this method in my other chime sculpture called Serenade. Unfortunately I don't have a current video of that sculpture but you can see a photo at this link. http://www.woodthatworks.com/kinetic-sculptures/serenade/
Posted @ Monday, February 01, 2010 6:28 PM by David C Roy