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The haptic system
In my project, I chose to limit myself to three drums: a 16-inch snare drum, a 23-inch kettle drum, and a 36-inch Gran Cassa. It is important to mention that my method can be applied to any drum, and I do so whenever I can’t access my own instruments. However, in this fellowship project, I found it crucial to establish a close relationship with these specific drums in order to deepen my understanding of their unique character. I have come to realize that these instruments in and of themselves possess power that parallels my own in the creation of music. Somehow, I feel I play the drums as much as the drums play me. By attuning to the space and my three drums, I move towards a non-hierarchical performance mode where the power fluctuates between the actors. Performing starts to seem like a process of ego dissolution that embraces the objects’ vital presence. I also notice an emancipation of creative pressure, by which I mean not that I’m escaping responsibility for the sounding result, but rather that I feel the liberating awareness of shared responsibility. Musicking becomes my method—that is, I am observing interagency between the instruments, the tools, the space, and myself.
Vibrating speakers, or transducers, convert electrical energy into mechanical energy. In a vibrating speaker there is no diaphragm. Instead, there is a moving plate, which vibrates when placed in contact with a resonating surface (in my case, the drum’s membrane) and thus serves to amplify sound.
The sounding result of vibrating speakers varies greatly and depends on several variables:
- the type of vibrating speaker
- the material and shape of the resonant surface with which the speaker is in contact
- the complexity of the electrical energy/sound that is sent through the vibrating speaker
In my search for the right vibrating speaker, I established certain goals for what I wanted to achieve musically. The material of the resonant surface was, of course, the membrane. The sound I wanted to send is essentially a combination of sine waves in a broad frequency area and sound samples of my own percussion. I wanted to amplify sine waves through the drum's membrane in order to color the amplified sound acoustically with objects, percussion, pressure, and tuning the skin. After various attempts and trying out several models and under the guidance of my supervisor Anders Tveit, I landed on two different kinds of transducers:
- Dayton BST1 bass shaker, which is well-suited for the big bass drum and frequencies in the lower register around 80HZ to 10HZ
- Visaton EX60R, which is suited to snare drum and the kettledrum in the frequency area departing from approximately 80HZ and above
Center - shows my preparation for the concert The Vibraiting Drum II
Vibrating speakers are delicate instruments. The conversion of energy makes the speaker heat up, and its components tend to break down if they are overloaded with complex frequency information over a longer period of time. I find that working with simple sine waves simplifies the task of maintaining the speaker. When the sound and frequency areas are more complex, the quality of sound production through the vibrating surface deteriorates, which is especially the case with the vulnerable Visaton EX60R. I purchased three Dayton BST1 bass shakers and ten Visaton EX60R transducers and went on developing what I call my haptic system. This system allows me to work horizontally with all my tools—the drums, iPads, amplifiers, and the transducers—equally accessible. My hands approach the skins and the screens with similar movements and intentions. I do not want to use a laptop in my setup because doing so will interrupt the organic mobility and the haptic focus in the system. Working with the haptic setup is like learning to play a new hybrid instrument and developing a technique for it at the same time. It is a continuous process of trial and error.
During the first six months my Ph.D. project i 2020, I worked from Calabria in Italy. My working instrument was a djembe and an old vibrating speaker. Sine frequencies transmitted by the vibrating speaker create a rhythmic pulse that I color with brushes in contact with the vibrations from the drum head.
Eight sine frequencies with their respective overtones up to the twelfth overtone are sent through the vibrating speaker in a random order. The triangle vibrates and creates interference. This material is similar to the last sequence of the composition "Cicchitaredu" on the album, "Strumento di etimo incerto".
The hesitating hand tries to find places on the drum head where the triangle can vibrate and create sonic distortions with the vibrating material. The original material transmitted by the vibrating speaker is taken from a sampled tank drum, and the brush accentuates the pulsating material vibrating through the drum head.
Sampled singing bowls and ceramic bells are sampled and programmed in the drum machine app, Patterning. The same singing bowls and a triangle are placed and moved around on the drum head, while the programmed material is sent through the transducer in contact with the membrane, changing slowly the harmonic spectrum.
The tools in the haptic system have been developed in parallel to my artistic work. Here is an overview of the tools I am using at the moment.
- Visaton EX 60 R transducers on the snare drum, kettledrum, and the Gran Cassa.
- Dayton BST-1 High Power Pro Tactile Bass Shaker for Gran Cassa for the low frequencies 80-10 HZ.
- Nobsound Mini Bluetooth 5.0 Digital Power Amplifier.
- Snare drum 16X10 Custom made from Le Soprano.
- Gran Cassa 36X18 Adams 266S.
- Gustav Poschardt 24 inches kettledrum with hand crank.
- iPads with the following apps:
Ribbons
Patterning 1
Patterning 2
Srutibox
Droneo
Audiobus with SiIQ Equalizer
During the research period, I collaborated with the musician Robin Hayward, inventor of the software Tuning Vine, a tool to compose with microtonal tuning in just intonation. Until now this interface has only been available as a desktop version, and, in my project, I wanted to support the development of an app version of the Tuning Vine—a playable version for iPad or a tablet, as opposed to the desktop version. I thought I could make use of this software in my haptic system as a way of exploring how microtonal frequencies interact with vibrating speakers. Unfortunately, the development of the app version took longer than expected, and I haven't been able to use the software much in this research project. I will, however, continue supporting the development of an app version in the hopes that it could be beneficial for my creative work in the future.
