2 note AM radio Theremin
SIREN:DRONE OSCILLATIONS
40 radio Theremin, Groundswell, Olana Historic Site, Hudson NY, 2015
Installation with Transmission performance.
AM RADIO OSCILLATIONS
Darling Foundry Summer 2013 Montreal
A composition
for electronically affected musical saw, horn, voice and extended home-made AM radio
Theremin.
Radios Oscillations is an electronic drone piece gathering in size
shifting and pacing as layers are added.
Using as many AM radios that can be found- with precision tuning and
slight electrical augmentation, it its possible to create a many oscillating, muli
toned giant Theremin out of a wall of AM radios.
For every two radios I can create one oscillating note. With
six radios I can get three notes, and so on… With a seventh radio slightly
hacked and modified I can control all the notes generated by the radios by
moving my body or hands or what-ever I wish near the antenna of the controlling
radio. (ie: a Theremin)
The AM radio theremin that i am using is always at least a 7 or 11 radio polyphonic radio extravaganza that produces a never ending, ever morphing interactive musical chord. This is something I have been developing, researching, performing with and further modifying for the last three years.
Generally the way this piece is performed is by stacking all
the radios in a circle, keeping the controlling radio in the middle. On one side of the controlling radio I
sit with my musical saw set up and on the other side of the antenna is often reserved for a musical collaborator.
The piece usually starts with the radios getting tuned into
their individual oscillations one by one.
Slowly the chord builds up. Eventually we add in electric musical saw,
and horn.
As we play we can move slowly closer and further away from
the controlling radio to augment the pitch of the giant radio chord coming from
all the stacked AM radios.
This is what guides the composition.
The sound of the saw and voice, other instruments are affected by octave-rs,
delay and reverb and eventually overtake the acoustic sound of all the radios.
I’ve included a wav file of the first performance—the higher
pitches are the radios. The lower pitches the saw and voice. I wish I had
video or pictures but that is yet to come.
This piece could work on stage but might also be nice set up
as an interactive installation.
The AM radio Theremin wall could be set up ahead of time and people
could walk in and around the installation playing with the sound of the radios
by simply moving near and far from the antenna.
Variations of this piece have been performed around town here in Montreal including events at Gallery Rat 9, The Darling Foundry and Innovations in Concert at the Sala Rosa in collaboration with Jen Reimer. It also went to 2013 Electric Eclectic Festival in Meaford Ontario. A piece was composed with the radios and the THeremin was further developed at the Souterrain residency at Gallery Sophie-Gips-Höfen last summer in Berlin, Germany also in collaboration with Jen Reimer. I have also performed it solo on tour through Sweden, sharing the stage with Jaki Liebezeit and Burnt Friedman. I have also performed a variation of this piece at 2014 Wavelengths festival in Toronto in collaboration with Johnny Nawracaj. Here are some pictures from Sleepover Drone Show 6 at The Plant in Montreal:
Here is the first performance of the piece at Rats 9.
Here is a mini kitchen demo of how the radios work:
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Here is a mini kitchen demo of how the radios work:
Here is a picture of my performance at Suoni Per il Popolo festival 2013
Here is a picture from the Berlin residency 2013
Here is a picture from Garageprojektet Hammenhög, sweden
Below is a picture of a collaborative performance i did with Jen Reimer for Innovations
in Concert. November 2013 at the Sala Rosa in Montreal.
Here is an interview jen and i did for Innovations in Concert in regards to the Sala Rosa performance.
