Airbag

August 14, 2013 3:44 PM

Since everybody's in the midst of posting their completed tracks for this year's album challenge, I thought what better time than to post another track just finished for last years? This track and its accompanying video features the public debut of our newest homebrewed weapon of sonic destruction: The Macroharp.

As you can probably tell from the video, courtesy of the hard labour our friend and co-conspirator Kerry Folsom, it's the strings and soundboard of a very very old/broken piano, removed from the shackles of its casing, propped up on two sawhorses, and played with various...accoutrements. Anything we could get our grubby mitts on, really. I also think this, personally, may be one of Trey's finest vocal performances to date.

INSTRUMENTATION:
Timbill Corder (me): Macroharp (left)
Trey Beauregard (man vs sun): Macroharp (bottom right), Vocals
Kerry Folsom: Macroharp (top right)

posted by askmeaboutLOOM (4 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite

how many strings does a standard grand piano have, anyway? Anyone know offhand? I'm too lazy too look it up. I wonder if there are, as such, any larger harps in existence.
posted by askmeaboutLOOM at 2:57 PM on August 17, 2013


Q: How many strings does a piano have?
A: It depends on the piano. Each note has three strings in the treble, two strings in the tenor and part of the bass, and only one in the very low bass. One of ours has 65 trebles (X 3=195), 12 tenor/bass (X 2=24), and 11 single low bass, so it comes out to 230. But that's a large grand, so you need to look in your piano and count them up.

posted by dubold at 2:21 AM on August 21, 2013


I'll just stick with "more than 5." What did you think of the piece, dubold?!
posted by askmeaboutLOOM at 6:56 PM on August 21, 2013


This is proper quality! I don't think I'd have fully appreciated it without the video, although that said I've got it playing a second time in the background now and still love it. I went on a fascinating but typically shallow nose around Wikipedia and Youtube about Futurist music a while back and this is really reminding me of that. Found, made or repurposed instruments are always great, both from a musical and philosophical perspective as far as I'm concerned. That's one of the things that first intrigued me about early Aphex Twin and industrial music.

Wasn't sure about the vocals first time through, but they're growing on me. I'm someone whose enjoyment of covers is in some ways proportional to their deviation from the original, so you're pushing those buttons for me too.

Liking the Macroharp, and the cover. Great stuff!
posted by comealongpole at 8:54 AM on August 31, 2013 [1 favorite]


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