Building the Beat of Your Own (electronic) Drum
Recently I started collecting examples from people who have tweaked, adapted, extended, perverted, or destroyed existing musical instruments.
We may not always notice it, but musical instruments are constantly changing. Just as musical styles evolve - blending, stretching - so too do musical instruments. As Tom Waits tells us ‘… the problem is that most instruments are square and music is always round.’ Round music requires rounder instruments - instrument development and musical styles are tightly wound together, each shaping the other.
People tweak and extend instruments, develop gadgets and devices, plugins and software, in order to achieve a different type of sound or way of playing. Sometimes there’s the necessity, or inspiration, or accident, that takes things further, into a new musical instrument.
Alon Ilsar is one such musical adventurer, having developed a number of new electronic percussion instruments: the EAPP, the head MARU, and the Airsticks and Air Pedal – two prototype instruments.