Serenade is a long running sculpture which produces a soft, random musical texture as well as some interesting visual patterns. Incorporated are precision tuned “Chimes of Java” created by Woodstock Percussion™.
Limited Edition of 36
Size:50"h x 50"w x 9"d
Power Source: negator spring
Approximate Run Time: 4.5 hours
Serenade©2000 David C. Roy
I’ve been toying with the idea for another “musical” sculpture since I made Chime Carillon in 1988. I was looking for a way to lay the tubes out on the wall in pipe organ fashion rather than using the traditional circular wind chime format. I liked the overall form of the idea but I couldn’t finalize it. The problem was one of complexity, controlling all 6 strikers led to a mechanism that was just too complex to be practical for a wall sculpture. The solution came to me while looking at a pair of earrings at a craft show. I’d rotate each chime tube and striker as a pair and let their relative motion generate the sound. This had the advantage of allowing me to control each tube and striker with a relatively simple mechanism while still allowing for random motion and sound. The rest of the design emerged after a series of experiments and a good measure of serendipity.
The power and control mechanism is on the left-hand side of the sculpture. The top pendulum wheel rotates back and forth controlling the overall pace of the movement. A small portion of this motion is transferred to the vertical axis of the chime tubes and strikers through a series of belts and pulleys. This transfer system is the key to the sculpture because it converts the regular, even pace of the left-hand side of the sculpture into the more random motion of the chime strikers. One of the more serendipitous benefits of this system is a way to control the overall volume of the sculpture. Simply sliding the tensioning balls on each tube suspension system allows you to regulate action and volume of that particular tube assembly. Hence you can have a delicate background chime of the light occasional breeze or a stronger presence depending on your mood and the size of the room.
Animated gif-formatted drawings work well when using Netscape Navigator 3, Microsoft Explorer 3 or more recent versions of these browsers. The gif animation will repeat itself and play more rapidly when the page has finished loading. It takes 1-2 minutes for all the frames of the animation to load. This type of animation is very compact and works well over the Internet but it has it's limitations. The speed that the animation plays back at depends on the viewing application that you are using and the speed of your computer. In order to keep load times short I have only used enough frames to give a brief idea of the motion. This should only be considered a brief sketch of the motion.
About the Sound
This is a looping 12 second recording of Serenade. This brief clip does not accurately reflect the wide variety of sound patterns generated over the normal 6 hour run of this sculpture. It also doesn't accurately reflect the volume which ranges from whisper quiet to gentle conversational accompaniment. The range of volume can be regulated for each chime tube.
If you don't hear the sounds you need to download the free QuickTime plugin from Apple computer.
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©2000 David C. Roy