3D | Sound Texturizer

Hi I’m back again! I’m so inspired by the word – Pizzicato, which is the plucking of strings. And thus, I decided to do something with strings and threads! 

Since I’m on a budget, I couldn’t get the guitar/ukelele strings as they were too expensive 🙁 And it will limit my experimentations too. So, I went to get different thickness of fishing lines and a beading wire, hoping that it will produce different sounds. And guess what, it did! 

I bought a few pretty little beads as to play around with it, thinking that maybe I could thread them through the string, and it will vibrate against the thread itself when plucked, producing a different sound.

Here are my process picture for my test model! 

Lets start off with the skeleton itself. I tried using wooden roads as the pillars… but I couldn’t seem to secure it well enough onto the foam board itself. Thus, I decided to go back to my good old foam board as the structure.

The structure looks super straight now right? Wait till I start tensioning the strings… (casually product placing Oishi Honey drink hahaha)

SADLY. After tensioning the strings, the foam board wasn’t strong enough to hold the structure, hence it started warping due to the tension. But I’m glad it worked! The wooden rod in the center was supposed to act as a mechanism for me to rotate, while it has mini “thorns” to pluck the strings. 

Thats all for now. Stay tune for my final product. 

3D | Making of a Tonoscope

Hi guys! Previously on my post, I showed some cool stuff of Cymatics. I was really amazed at how the objects moved according to the vibrations, thus, I decided to make myself a tonoscope! I did some research and since I do not really have the materials… I tried to improvise, and it sort of works?

What you’ll need:

A plastic container
Toilet Roll or a Tube
Cling Wrap and Rubber Band


Cut a hole at the side of the container and insert the toilet roll. Make sure it’s tight, so that the sound wouldn’t escape as much.

Cling wrap it reaaaaaal tight, secure it with a rubber band.

 

Tadah and it’s done! Simply place some salt/sugar/or cinnamon (as cheryl suggested to give some smell) on the cling wrap itself. Here’s a short video clip to show how it turned out!

I realised that a metal tin would be so much better as it will be able to give a better resonance than a plastic container. But oh well, it’s a fun experiment otherwise!


After sharing each of our sound texturizers with the class, Cheryl brought some of her own sound texturizer and we went up to the rooftop to try them out. It was reaallly fun. Especially the thunder drum(?) thingy.

3D | Cymatics

Hi guys!!

I was just looking around for some inspiration and I’ve finally found something that I’ve been looking for a long long time! I remembered seeing this somewhere on my Facebook but I don’t really know whats the term for it. And guess what, it’s called Cymatics.

Cymatics (from Greek: κῦμα “wave”) is the study of visible sound co vibration, a subset of modal phenomena. Typically the surface of a plate, diaphragm, or membrane is vibrated, and regions of maximum and minimum displacement are made visible in a thin coating of particles, paste, or liquid.
 
I felt that the word Cymatics, kind of reminded me one of the keywords in the brief, which was Resonance. In classical physics, resonance is a phenomenon in which a vibrating system or external force drives another system to oscillate with greater amplitude at a specific preferential frequency.
 
I couldn’t find the exact video I saw, which was that this artist had use cymatics to create his own art, it was really c o o l. But anyhow, here are some videos which I found that is quite awesome as well and I wanted to share with you guys! Please turn down your volume as there’s some high frequency audio involved.

 
I’ve actually tried to make a Tonoscope at home and I’ll bring it to class tomorrow! Oh and a tonoscope is a fun acoustic device that enables you to see beautiful patterns created by the sound of your voice. Buttttt, I didn’t get the right materials as I was just using a metal cup. So I used some music to produce bass and it moved! It didn’t work exactly like it did in the videos, but the salt… still vibrates ok hahaha.

3D | The Frog Prince

There are many different species of frogs across the world, some of which are deadly and poisonous and some of which are harmless to humans.  We the humans, are also “poisonous” and “harmful” to frogs as well isn’t it? Lets see whoever has eaten frog leg porridge or any of a frog dish… raise your hand. (well i eat them too) 

But anyways! Frogs, as you all know, are classified as amphibians, while we are classified as mammals. Though we are of different classifications, it’s surprising how frogs and humans bear much in common in terms of anatomy and bodily functions.

First, lets talk about organs. As you can see from the anatomy below, both humans and frogs have many of the same organs. For example, lungs, stomach, heart, brain, liver, small & large intestine etc etc. 

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Another interesting similarity I found was about the skeleton structure. Even though frogs don’t look much like people on the outside, their skeletons are similar to our skeletons as well! How cool is that? As you can see from the diagram below, the frog’s legs are just like our arms and legs! Frogs have bones to support it’s upper leg and for their lower leg, just like our skeletal structure.  A frog also has two shoulder blades, and clavicles, or what we called – collarbones, that are shaped a lot like the same bones in a person’s body.

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Last but not least, since this project is about Sound. We can’t forget to talk about the frogs ear right? Surprisingly, there’s also quite a number of similarities between frogs and humans ears.

So, let me introduce -the tympanum, which is an external hearing structure found in animals, such as frogs, toads, insects and mammals (which is us). And wow, honestly I didn’t know this until I went to read all about it! 

A frog’s ear drum works in very much the same way that our human ear drums work. It’s just like a human’s ear drum, a membrane that is stretched across a ring of cartilage like a snare drum that vibrates.

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Fun fact time! Do you know, the tympanum, may also be used to determine the sex of certain frog species. For example, in male bullfrogs, the tympanum is larger than the eye. In contrast, a female bullfrog’s tympanum is about the same size as its eyes. 

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Sorry guys for the frog pictures. Lets end this post with a cute “hybrid” frog alright!! 

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3D | Soundscapes II

Here’s part II of the Soundscapes Mini Project! Since it’s not an in-class activity, I got to experiment more textures in the comfort of my home. For my material, I decided to use just paper. Paper, a versatile material that can create any kind of textures/ shapes you like. Though it’s just a simple white piece sheet, you can create anything you want just by scoring and folding it in different methods. I was able to achieve different types of looks by folding it differently even if the scoring method is the same. In addition, though paper can be quite stiff sometimes, you can either form organic curves by gently bending it or you can also forcefully create a curve! How amazing is that. Sigh god bless the one who invented the scoring method. 


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I always wondered how some artists managed to achieve this particular unusual shape, so I went to look for tutorials on how to achieve it and I managed to get this really cool geometrical looking shape (bottom right pic)!! I was totally BLOWN AWAY at how simple the process is but yet it turned out really good! 

Without further ado, let me share with you my Soundscapes 🙂


Pleasant Sound – Sea Waves

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The sea to me, has always been a place of tranquility. I really love the sea, not for the looks of it, but mostly for the sounds it makes. Personally, I would prefer the calm sea as the rhythmic pulse softly doused the sand, creating its own symphony. For this piece, I tried two different materials – tracing paper and normal 152gsm paper. In the end, I felt that the tracing paper portrays the idea of the sea more, due to its translucency as it reminds me of the sea waves.  Also, in order to show the repetitive motion, I decided to cut strips to represent the waves and curve the paper in a way to show the softness of the rhythm, and the never ending flow of the vast sea. 

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Unpleasant Sound – Fork Scratching on Plate

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First thing first, I don’t think it’s only me, but I think everyone HATES the sound when your fork accidentally scrapes the surface of the plate. O M G – if only I could express how much I dislike the sound! Even the slightest “whimper” of it will give me goosebumps. And that’s how I was inspired to do this piece, that coincidentally looks like a flower or an onion. For this piece of work, instead of using my trusty penknife to cut the “petals”, I decided to tear the paper instead. The  scraping noise gave me an image of a torn edge as I tried to mimick my goosebumps for the raw edges. To enhance the sensitivity, I decided to cut mini thorns onto the petals – to portray the goosebumps that I get. Cheryl mentioned that maybe I could add some foil onto the tip of the thorns so as to add some metal elements onto it to remind or hint of a metal plate/fork. 

So this concludes the Soundscapes project. Stay tune to this small space of mine!