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Re: PREPARING INSTRUMENTS for LOOPING (and any other performance)

I've had great fun with paperclips on my violin. If you soak them in coke overnight then all the shiny coating cones off and they go all rough. Slid onto a violin string (the G works best as it doesn't ping off when you play) it makes a fabulously horrible grating sound.
Also I hung one on each of the strings just next to the bridge to get a metallic jangling sound when playing. I'm sure there are lots of other things you can do with them too :-) 

Chrissie



On 09/02/13 14:14, Rick Walker wrote:

Tony's post about Bart Hopkins new book on Guitar Preparation got me
inspired.

I have experimented with a lot of different ways to "prepare"
instruments for unconventional
performance.

I thought it would be cool to assemble all the different creative ways
everyone on this list has
figured out how to 'prepare' an instrument.


My own tiny arsenal for guitar and other string 'preparation':


1)  large and tiny alligagor clips   (the size has a huge impact on the
resultant timbre so try lots of different sizes)
2) Magnets-   from very tiny (Bucky Balls) to very large ones (these are
very hip, especially when attached to alligator clips)
3)  Martini skewers  (I particularly love a set of blue plastic Tiki
ones that I found because they have
      incredible bounce characteristic (not unlike hammer dulcimer
mallets) and you can turn them over
      and use them as tiny plastic 'slides'  to change the pitch of the
instrument
4)  Suzuki 1/16 sized bows..................amazing and only  $25 USD
for a wonderful approach to any string instrument
5)  E-bows and, better yet,  multiple E-bows..............make any
multiple string instrument with metal strings a fantastic drone instrument
6)  Metallic Chinese 'health' balls (the ones that have little chimes
inside of them).............try rolling these guys down any string
instrument
        for random pitch shifting experiments
7)   Brushes of all kinds:
        a)  vegetable brushes  (they come in varying 'stiffnesses' so
their texture is different
        b)  metallic (careful, these eat up strings on good
instruments)  I love the kinds used , specifically, for flea eradication
on pets
        c)  the ones that come off of temporary hair dye products
(specifically on 'Dye Hard' products or Hot Topic 'Temporary Dye' products
        d) any drum stick or mallet you can think of (I particularly
love velcro-ing different kinds of bells and rattle sounds to strikers
like this)
  8)   Slides of any kind  (glass, metal, ceramic, bottle caps, backs of
finger nails,  any damn thing)
9)     Vibrators  (again, anything--- back massagers, dildos, clitoral
vibrators,  anything that vibrates a string potentially)
10)   Drills (again, anything that attaches to a drill that can cause
rapid re-playing of the string---Eddie Van Halen, notroriously used
           guitar picks inbedded into a drill bit that allowed for
hyper, faster than human,  picking techniques.
11)   Okay, there are more but I"m running out of steam...
12)   What the f*ck else?

Rick Walker





--
Chrissie