Stella Artois Chalice Symphony

Eek! - long time no blog. They say all work and no play makes Matt a dull boy...

So, what links Belgium's best selling beer "Stella Artois", American indie rock band "Cold War Kids", musical robot sculptor from the MIT Media Lab, Andy Cavatorta, and me, Matt Nolan, a cymbal maker from England?

Well, this is something I've had to keep under my hat for almost a year: The Stella Artois Chalice Symphony. What's that you say? Last March I had an email and then a phone call from Mother Industries, an ad agency in New York. They'd seen my work for Bjork on the Gameleste and wondered if Bjorgvin Tomasson and I could get together again to make some musical instruments based around the Stella Artois beer glass - what they call their Chalice. I called Bjorgvin but he was in the middle of a bespoke pipe organ build that was going to keep him busy until September. Shame. Though it had me thinking about other folks who might make a good collaborator.

Then I got an email from Andy Cavatorta which asked, without giving too much away, if I'd been approached about this as he had too. Pretty quickly we were both making plans about how we could work on this potential project together. Andy had also made an instrument for Bjork's Biophilia project. So, I ran out and trawled a few bars in town, trying to buy a couple of Stella Chalices. Surprisingly difficult but, in the end, I got a pair of the pint sized ones. I did some experiments on these and made a couple of ideas videos to send to Andy and Mother. This thing was all about glass. Here I am, a metal percussion craftsman who mostly makes things using large hammers, dealing with glass ;-)

First I had to get Frankfurt Musikmesse out of the way but, straight afterwards, I was off to Brooklyn to Andy's studio on Flatbush Avenue. This is a very cool place. It is an open plan shared space including many small creative companies. There is lots of cross-pollination of ideas there. We were sharing the floor with a Genetics Lab, a Broadway Costume and Set Designer, an expert Researcher into Big Data and a Greek lady with a French accent who makes artistic sculptures which are inflatable. That's just the half of it...

Separately, and without conferring, Andy and I had both suggested to Mother that what they really needed was a glass Pyrophone - or Flame Organ. They liked this idea. You could say that they warmed to it immediately. Thinking in terms of "Symphony", I was also imagining things like giant chalices fashioned into Timpani and some kind of glass Bell Tree. Also there was the prospect of bowed glass. Using a violin or bass bow on gongs and cymbals is something I do a lot and it works well on glass too. The timps idea died pretty quickly, we were going to be working with the pre-existing chalices only. Andy was thinking struck and bowed tuned chalices also and the Hive and Violina ideas were already crystalising inside his head.

Andy worked mostly as the overall architect and project manager, also writing the upper levels of real-time software - all the instruments would be robotic and MIDI controlled. We had Karl Biewald for mechanical design smarts and, thankfully, also his giant CNC machine. Marina Litvinskaya was also key to the whole thing, doing lots of fabrication with a great artistic eye - initially paper and cardboard maquettes, later on a lot of the actual build. My main job was to be the physics of sound guy - to investigate and plan note ranges, figure out how to tune the glass, etc. I also ended up helping with the mechanical build, writing actuator code for Arduinos and soldering mosfet driver boards. All hands to the pump! Throughout the project, there was a revolving door of other cast members too, helping out with various things.

We had 3 sizes of Chalice to play with - and lots and lots of boxes full of them (at the beginning at least!) 33, 40 and 50cl Chalices - in nice thin, musical, untempered glass. The pint chalices I had got in the UK were thick, heavy, clunky sounding and very easily shattered tempered glass. There was no way we could have cut down and tuned those. In the basement at Flatbush, with a small diamond blade tile cutter, I figured out the extremeties of the tuning ranges that still sounded good for each of the 3 Chalices. I found that when you bow a chalice it sounds a few cents flat than when you strike it with a beater. I then went ahead and tuned up 18+ Chalices for the Violina and 24+ Chalices for the Hive - all of this with help and skills from Leo Tecosky and the facilites in his own workshop and the workshop and Brooklyn Glass.

I will continue this blog a little later - and add some photos and video to make it properly interesting. But first, more of that work that makes Matt a dull boy...

PASIC 2012 - Austin, Texas

What a great PASIC this year!

It was almost non-stop on my booth. I sold every last triangle and - as you can see - I had a few! Interest in them was already pretty high, but it was boosted further by the use of my triangles by Nicholas Ormrod of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, London in his Symphonic Accessories masterclass and also by Keith Aleo of Zildjian in his clinic.

I had visits from players with all the local symphony orchestras - Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, plus the Florida Orchestra, the Bergen Philharmonic and others. There was a lot of interest also in the 100% reliable bowing capabilities of the Bat-Wing gongs. I was told to rename them "Lord of the Rings" gongs!

So, besides the triangles, I also sold a bunch of cymbals, hi-hats and smaller gongs. A very successful show.

I had the pleasure of meeting with old friends, plus making a whole load of new ones including Johnny Rabb, Ari Hoenig, Todd Sucherman, Luis Conte, Richie Garcia and Ralph Humphrey.

PASIC has a lovely relaxed atmosphere. It's all about the art and about percussion education. This show, more than others, is much more about cameraderie than competition. The setting too - Austin in Autumn - was a lot of fun. Great people, great vibe, great food.

I believe PASIC is back in Indianapolis next year - which is nice enough, especially the selection of "brewpubs". But, I'm looking forwards more to a return to Texas at some point.

Next to Last Night of the Proms

Long time no blog. I really need to make a note to write updates more often!

Yesterday, I was in the Royal Albert Hall in London, to catch the last part of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra's rehearsal of Haydn and Strauss before meeting up with the 7-strong percussion section. The music I heard was quite beautiful and haunting, but that was soon to be replaced with the clashing of cymbals and the pinging of triangles - sometimes several at once!

This often happens when I show instruments to a group of people, and it does amuse me. It's not so bad with triangles, but with cymbals, in a small room, several people all trying them out at once is quite cacophonous and I'm sure each player can't really hear in proper detail the instrument they are checking out. Waiting and taking turns is better, but I can't fault the enthusiasm to hear the sounds!

That said, the Austrians didn't all go at the cymbals together; just the triangles, and just at first. I am very grateful for their feedback and opinions on my work. Every orchestra has its own "house sound". The triangle they currently use is 20-year old stock, no longer produced, found in the back of a dusty music store - the culmination of a long search. It was nice that 3 of my offerings also made the cut - one Brass and two high-carbon Steel hand-forged triangles. Plus a further two, much smaller Bronze ones for operatic works.

Comparing my clash cymbals with theirs was most instructive - and amusing that the pair they considered very bright were considered "really quite dark" by American symphony players back in May. As I said, every orchestra has its own tastes!

So, how can I refine my orchestral cymbals based on such contrasting feedback? Well, there were still common themes coming out - things I hadn't heard in the cymbals myself. Time to train my ears more, maybe pull in some Fourier analysis too. Onwards and upwards!

NAMM, San Fran, Gamelan...

Warmth on the West Coast! In a welcome break from the snowy, cold, damp weather we've been having in England since November, a trip out to California brought many rewards.

Yes, NAMM show time again. Bill Detamore of Pork Pie Drums invited me once more to share his booth and show my cymbals, plus a special Pork Pirate Gong

You can see more of the show (my work and other folks') here and there's a video of my cymbals from Mikedolbear.com here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGa8VzFK5EQ

I had a great show, met lots of nice folks, made a few sales, lined up some future deals, etc. Alex Acuna, Billy Ward and Elton John's percussionist were among some of the folks to come and try stuff out

After NAMM, I'd booked a few more days on my trip and took the opportunity to drive up to San Francisco, well Oakland to be precise, to visit my pal and endorser, the mighty William Winant.

William has played with the Kronos Quartet, San Francisco Symphony, Mr Bungle, Secret Chiefs Three, Sonic Youth, Danny Elfman, John Cage, the list is long and amazing... He also teaches at Mills College, which is where we met up. Beautiful leafy campus. William showed me their Gamelan collection, and also the Lou Harrison "American Gamelan" plus some other very cool Harrison instrument creations in fantastic tuning regimes.

Later on, we went out for some authentic Soul Food - mighty tasty. Then spent the evening talking about music, percussion instruments, composers and musicians. Willie's story about Frank Zappa upsetting the flautists in the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players was particularly entertaining.

In other news, if you like your updates more bite-sized, you can now also follow me on twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/mattNolanCustom

Autumn Cannibals

Well, the Whitby Gothic Weekend was a blast. I was up there on the north-east coast providing cymbals and a gong for top L.A. drummer, Tom Coyne, and one of his bands, Autumn Cannibals - the new solo project of Jeff Diehm from The Last Dance.

They played an excellent set and it was nice to hear my cymbals in a concert setting over a huge P.A. for a change. The crowd was into it too, and was a sight to behold. Such amazing outfits! Everything from Steampunk and near-fetish wear down to "traditional" goth blackness.

I enjoyed staying with the band and a few of their friends in a huge house up on the clifftops. Slightly disappointed in the double-glazed windows though. It would have been nice to hear the waves crashing into the shore more easily while drifting off to sleep. The Cannibals had flown in just for this gig, so they arrived and departed more-or-less in synch with me - Friday night to Sunday morning.

I look forward to catching up with them again when I head out to their home ground in January for the NAMM show.

Meanwhile, here's a couple of songs from their set:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=traLzUq1mqY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLv7NhpEcwo

Clinics and Festivals

Last week, I had the pleasure of watching 3 great drummers at work. I went to the Benny Greb drum clinic in Manchester, UK. He was supported by Ash Soan (you may not have heard of him but I bet you've heard records he's played on) and Jake Brown. All 3 were amazing, entertaining and instructive.

Jake is 14 and has been playing drums for, I think, 4 years. Sheesh! I wish I was that good after I'd been playing for 4 years. I'm still not that good!

Jake had planned out a solo incorporating quite an array of my instruments but, as he had his set time cut short, he had to scale back, so just one gong was used. But it's a beauty. Check the video here of Jake's drum solo piece - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7PDeBoDZxk



Next weekend, there's another outing for my creations - this time with top L.A. drummer, Tom Coyne. He's playing with Autumn Cannibals at the Whitby Gothic Festival over the Halloween weekend. Tom will use a full set of my cymbals on his kit, plus a Gothic gong or two. Hopefully, I'll be able to film some of that too. I'm looking forwards to watching Tom play.

Most illuminating

Each time I shoot a promo video for my work, I try to do it a litle better than last time; learning from mistakes and experience. Apart from the ones where I've had direct help from Andy Mac (which are of vastly superior quality!), hopefully you can notice a gradual improvement from video to video.

The latest one was a medium scale production for me. Not too long, elaborate or fancy, but not a short, thrown together with little care piece either. Here it is on youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUQOZ4_b_zQ

I wanted to get the lighting better than before. But without spending any money on fancy equipment. Before, I have used multiple small spot-lights (the ones from my exhibition booth rig), but these are actually pretty dim for photography / videography and they cast hard shadows and give you over-sparkly point reflections.

What I needed was flood-lights in "soft-boxes" - to create a larger, more diffuse light source to soften the shadows and make reflections of the lights less offensive.

I made 2 of them in very Heath-Robinson fashion. Both from cheap halogen flood lights that I already had. One with two microphone stands and a large sheet of tissue paper:



The second, I made with a cymbal boom arm stand, a microphone stand and an old coated drum head:



I had them either side of the scene so the drums were illuminated quite evenly from both sides (and also from the existing overhead lighting in the room):



Seemed to work pretty well. I had to add a "flag" to screen off the right hand soft-box later on, when I had a video camera with a wide-angle lens on it out in front of the kit. The light, even though out of shot, was still getting into the lens and creating a lens flare. So I hung a black sheet (like the ones I've used as the backdrop) from one of the microphone stands that was actually being used to hold a microphone to block the light to lens path, but not the light to drums path.

So, you don't necessarily need proper, expensive Gobos and soft-boxes to do a reasonable job...