video record
Media not available in the Digital Archive
Description
A demonstration of home-made musical instruments and of unusual ways of producing musical sounds.
Metadata describing this Open University video programme
Module code and title: TAD292, Art and environment
Item code: TAD292; 02
First transmission date: 24-03-1976
Published: 1976
Rights Statement:
Restrictions on use:
Duration: 00:23:46
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Producer: John Selwyn Gilbert
Contributors: Steven Griffiths; Richard Orton; Barbara Larder; Janet Sherbourne; Hugh Davies
Publisher: BBC Open University
Keyword(s): Contact microphone; Electro-magnetic pick-up; Home-made instruments; Household objects
Footage description: Richard Orton, lecturer in Music at the University of York, introduces the programme from the studio. He advocates careful listening to the everyday acoustic environment, as well as the generation of sounds with found objects. Orton demonstrates how the following objects can make interesting sounds: a single clock chime; a yoghurt container; plastic spoons; a sheet of perspex; a candle-mould containing ball bearings; a burst balloon. Orton shows how found objects can be adapted so as to form simple musical instruments. Examples shown are glass bowls, plants pots, a coffee jug and children's toys. Orton introduces three of his students; Steve Griffiths, who demonstrates his musical chair; Barbara Larder, who plays a variety of clay pots; Janet Sherbourne, who plays some tin cans. Using the Home Experiment Kit contact microphone, Orton records, and then replays, tiny sounds obtained from Sherbourne's tins. Orton introduces Hugh Davies, a composer and performer of electronic music. Davies explains the construction of a number of his musical instruments. He demonstrates the use contact microphones and magnetic pick-ups in these instruments. The programme concludes with the whole group improvising on a number of the instruments already examined.
Master spool number: 6HT/71873
Production number: 00525_5212
Videofinder number: 1074
Available to public: no