In Search Of Hidden Sounds...

After bagging the completely procedural algorithmic album idea (which turned out to be a lot more fun to think about than to actually create, as it happens) I started pondering my next release in earnest a couple weeks ago.

And we’ll leave aside for now the concept of earnestly pondering.

What I decided to do was an EP with vocals (which is unusual for me in the September of my years), where the music itself, while heavily programmed and produced, would be sourced entirely from found sounds and home-made musical instruments. To that end, I purchased this book to get me started. As it turns out, the word “ultimate” might be mis-applied, as roughly 2/3 of the book is concerned with cigar-box guitars. There are, however, some interesting ideas in it, provided you look beyond the author’s fascination with all things jug band. Virtually everything in the book can easily be done with various tutorials and pictorials on-line, but it’s kind of handy to not have to drag my laptop out to the garage.

Anyhow, the first instrument I built was what my brain has decided is called a Dookie Stick for some strange reason, but what is actually a Diddly Bow, the simplest home-made stringed instrument. Turned out pretty cool, although his directions differ rather greatly from the ones I built when I was a kid.

The music itself, despite starting from the simplest home-made electro-acoustic instruments, will follow my normal abstract techno production techniques. I’ve been thinking about attempting a combination of the ultra-spare and dirty early Chess blues sound and modern IDM for a couple years now, and this will be my first stab at it. We’ll see how it turns out, I guess.

What’s your favorite home-made electro-acoustic instrument? If you use found sounds in your music, what sources do you gravitate towards? Do you mic things or use a transducer? Do you have any production tricks for this sort of thing?