Pianotech

Greetings,

One of our graduating MFA students, Daniel Newman-Lessler, created an installation for his Kinetic Sculpture class. Daniel describes it like this:

Do you still want to go anywhere?  Do you still think turning a wheel will help?


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Alan Eder
Valencia CA
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Thanks for sharing this, Alan. I love this kind of stuff. Unfortunately I am unable to get any of the links to actually play. Appears they all require some third party app.

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Geoff Sykes, RPT
Los Angeles CA
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David, 

Originally, the artist"s intention was to have a sustained drone. Once we noticed that the friction of the knot making its way around the string slowed things down a bit, we liked the variation that that brought it to the sound. So, we decided to set the pump and the friction on the fishing line so that water wheel would deliberately stall, but be able to start itself back up again. That became the main event, sonically speaking.

Alan

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Alan Eder, RPT
Herb Alpert School of Music
California Institute of the Arts
Valencia, CA
661.904.6483
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-19-2022 14:35
From: David Dewey
Subject: Water Wheel Powered Bowed Piano

An intersting sculpture. I have artists in my family (they even teach art at colleges) so am familiar with their "thinking outside the box" stuff. Also with the lack of engineering backgrounds! Interesting concept, but it has some design flaws, unless the artist wanted the water wheel to stall frequently. And then there is the knot in the string. . . .

:)

Original Message:
Sent: 5/19/2022 7:37:00 PM
From: Alan Eder
Subject: RE: Water Wheel Powered Bowed Piano

David, 

Originally, the artist"s intention was to have a sustained drone. Once we noticed that the friction of the knot making its way around the string slowed things down a bit, we liked the variation that that brought it to the sound. So, we decided to set the pump and the friction on the fishing line so that water wheel would deliberately stall, but be able to start itself back up again. That became the main event, sonically speaking.

Alan

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Alan Eder, RPT
Herb Alpert School of Music
California Institute of the Arts
Valencia, CA
661.904.6483
------------------------------

Intentional, in a "lemons to lemonade" sense, yes.

Alan

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Alan Eder, RPT
Herb Alpert School of Music
California Institute of the Arts
Valencia, CA
661.904.6483
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 05-19-2022 20:02
From: David Dewey
Subject: Water Wheel Powered Bowed Piano

Ah! so those parts were intentional! OK.

Original Message:
Sent: 5/19/2022 7:37:00 PM
From: Alan Eder
Subject: RE: Water Wheel Powered Bowed Piano

David,

Originally, the artist"s intention was to have a sustained drone. Once we noticed that the friction of the knot making its way around the string slowed things down a bit, we liked the variation that that brought it to the sound. So, we decided to set the pump and the friction on the fishing line so that water wheel would deliberately stall, but be able to start itself back up again. That became the main event, sonically speaking.

Alan

------------------------------
Alan Eder, RPT
Herb Alpert School of Music
California Institute of the Arts
Valencia, CA
661.904.6483
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 05-19-2022 14:35
From: David Dewey
Subject: Water Wheel Powered Bowed Piano

An intersting sculpture. I have artists in my family (they even teach art at colleges) so am familiar with their "thinking outside the box" stuff. Also with the lack of engineering backgrounds! Interesting concept, but it has some design flaws, unless the artist wanted the water wheel to stall frequently. And then there is the knot in the string. . . .

:)