Music from a Cardboard Box?
What happens when you give a two-and-a-half year old boy a cardboard box and then tell him to destroy it? This happens.
But the important question for this blog is: can you make music from it? You can download the MP3 file below. Just click on it, or right click and choose 'save target as'.
I'm Talin.mp3
Those who have been listening to my recent electronic music will know that it has been formed around sampling concepts; I find limiting myself to a particular sampling idea a great spur for creativity.
In this piece, Talin Box Destroyer was given a cardboard box and a packet of rubber bands. All the sounds in this piece resulted from the box being tapped, kicked, slammed with a mallet, filled with toys and shaken, rubber bands being strung across it (luckily only I and Talin's mum Laura were injured, and soon decided the rubber bands were just too dangerous for Talin) and eventually torn to pieces.
So what sort of music was made? I don't know, but it is both romping and innocent, much like Talin.
25 comments:
what a gorgeous piece of music wayne! (and i'm not just saying that because it has my son's delightful voice and skillful box-ripping on it!)
it makes a plonking-plinkingly good listen.
laura
love it! tho shocked that i did not get a mention as source of said cardboard box that my tumble-vibe came in.
Laura, yup I think Talin stole the show.
Wrecker, we wrecked your tumble-vibe box good and proper. Got any more?
Excellent. Great idea.
Nice work! I love it. I am in the process of creating an album of my 4 year old sining random songs to loops in Garage Band.
-roccit
p.s. Prepare to be 'boing-boing'ed
That is absolutely the loveliest, most wonderful thing I've heard for a long, long time!
Thank you so much for sharing it.
Awesome. Adorable, yet pleasant to listen to.
And you just got linked on Boingboing.net, so you're probably going to get a surge in traffic.
A great big "kick A" for you.
Wonderful music!
Beautiful. Wonderful. Can I do a remix? LOL
Congratulations. You are on Boing Boing.
Love your style and attitude.
John (72yrs young)
Nice idea, and also nice to involve kids in music-making! Anything to fire up their imaginations is great! --DaveX
wow, thanks for those comments. Yup, it was fun. And thanks for Talin's expert box destroying, I especialy liked his 'rubber band' song and I gave it a star role.
Greywulf, I liked your blog by the way. I do strange little stories on this blog sometimes.
roccitman, good luck on your album project, you gonna post some samples anywhere?
Novachild, remix away my friend.
Ta
What do you use to mix the sounds together?
beautiful piece of work. Your son will love you so for this 20 years hence.
I use Fruity Loops 6 to mix the electonic music. Some people say fruity loops is not professional because its onboard sounds are lame. They are. Don't use them. Make your own sounds. Then it is an easy to use and flexible piece of software.
Though Talin is not my son, his mother was very pleased to hear the music I made during a little babysitting spell.
Great idea, well done!
That was charming, very enjoyable. I think its the best one so far. The rubberband chorus reminded me of the Japanese Koto. Well Done.
xx
I spent much of the morning listening to the Boards, so your MFCB fit right in. It nicely snapshots the feel of innocent fun mixed with lots of energy.
Gotta agree with you that recording and arranging your own sounds just satisfies deeper. Very one-uvva-kind and personal I guess. Very enjoyable Wayne!
Very nice & gentle song. Great work! You should consider pitching this song to Nickelodeon - I could easily see this being put to a video and then broadcast on their network. Who knows - they could probably use it for their show, Avatar.
Lol! Very good. I love the singing!
Thanks Ben. I am glad you picked up on the 'rubber band' song, tis my favourite bit.
"I'm Talin". That rocks, well beats :-) Nice work again.
RdO IV
upps! upps!!
I love the melody, did you do that just by plinking rubber bands? sort of a rubber band harp?
The process was a bit more complicated. But you are right, I built a kind of rubberband harp over the cardboard box. I strummed and plucked it and recorded the samples. I then sampled each note individually and reconstructed a digital rubberband harp on the computer, and that is the one I played the melody on.
TvdIie You have a talant! Write more!
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