Resonance Exchange
February 2018 performance in Montpelier, VT with artist Kevin Gilmore. We each choose and constructed an instrument based around a long spool of piano wire to see how different modes of exciting a string could play and sound together. I built a modified version of Ellen Fullman's Long String Instrument and Kevin choose Alvin Lucier's Music on a Long Thin Wire.
Long String Instrument
This version of Ellen Fullman's instrument uses .09 gauge piano wire and a harmonic tuning with added sound-boxes at the harmonic nodes. The additional sound-boxes cause the sound to shift it's sounding location. The strings are played longitudinally with rosined fingers.
Music on a Long Thin Wire
This Alvin Lucier uses an oscillator to control pitch and a small amplifier and magnet to drive the wire. The wire acts similar to speaker cone wire but instead is fully stretch and tuned. Varying frequencies cause the string to vibrate wildly if the frequency is in tune with or is somehow divisible within the tuned frequency.