A performance on the Elephant.

The three nights of performance are now over.  Three sold out shows of experimental/cross-disciplinary/non-mainstream art.  The performances were spread over three rooms and the Musical Elephant performance was in one of the two smaller rooms.  The two small rooms were therefore quite packed, making filming of the performances difficult.  However, we had a run through on the final night to allow the performers from the other rooms to see the works. Kristian Larsen captured the essence of our performance on video, with Jeff Henderson is standing in for Phil Dadson.

My work, Wili Pai Sa Sunge (something a little, it is of work) juxtaposes images from an earlier adventure travelling through Africa and my current explorations with music and sculptural objects.  The linear narrative of the african trip images provides a backdop for music played on the Elephant body, the Kundi and Marimba.

The work plays with scale.  The audience is intended to feel a certain dissonance as their focus moves between the components of the work, the trip slides, the sizeable Elephant in the room, and the music which combines ancient tradition in the form of Kundi tunes, with free improvisation which is a  modern form essentially ephemeral in nature.   My African trip was a conventionally large adventure:  my current adventures artistic expression are, to me, adventures of equal standing.

First night.

Opening night of "Bathing With Elephants and Other Exotic Reveries".  Phil the Elephant stands calm and serene while pre-performance preparations occur around him.   We are all checking that everything is still working and in place.  Last night the pre-amp I'm using for the daxophone was showing a low battery light last night and now appears dead.  I swap the battery.  Still dead.  Jiggle the battery.  Still dead, convince myself I've put the battery in the wrong way round, there's a noise, but also the smell of magic smoke, and that is never good.  I plug the lead straight into the daxophone and it works, I'll worry about the pre-amp later (checks: it is dead).

I realise at this point that I'm quite nervous.   This isn't the first time I've performed, and I have rituals and ways of working through performance anxiety.  This isn't the first sculptural object I've made - there is a rather excellent Giant Metal Owl in our garden.  This isn't the first time I've played a gig on a novel and unfamiliar instrument just after acquiring it - my first rock gig was about two weeks after I got my first bass guitar, and my first upright bass gig was the day I brought it home.  It isn't the first conceptual art/installation piece I've collaborated on either.  However, this is the first time I've conceived, and executed an installation/performance art piece on my own - so in many ways this is my first actual piece of public 'performance art'.

There may be reviews, comments, people talking about my work, and it is all on my head.

This is novel, and I have no coping mechanisms for this.

Although this is my first piece of art, I have had some necessary and excellent help along the way.    Without my brother's help, expertise, advice and power tools the Elephant would probably not be complete, or stable, and I would probably be missing some fingers.   With the excellent tusks and painting help from Nic and Nic, and the great sounding mahogany from Ivan, the Elephant is strong and mighty.

I'm not playing the Elephant on my own.  Phil Dadson is collaborating with me.  Phil is one of those amazing musicians who can make anything sound musical.  I've heard him make a piece of crumpled paper sound incredible, so an Elephant should be no problem.  Phil is also one of the main proponents and influences of scratch made instruments and sonic sculptures in New Zealand.

So, I have a most excellent Elephant, a slide show which tells a simple true story, a prepared structure for the music, and one of the countries best improvisers collaborating with me, and my partner, who has a critical eye, supports and believes in me, and in this project.

And yet, I am nervous.

I get my cue to start and prepare to blow the first note on the side blown horn.    Although this is a traditional African instrument, the sound is that of the Putatara/Pukaea/Conch which has a powerful resonance throughout the Pacific.  It is also very easy to mess up.  I've been here before, conch in hand, lonely and exposed, and I start to panic a little as I blow the first note.  Then Phil joins in trumpeting through the trunk.  I'm not alone.  I move to the harp, my fingers are like rubber, but the notes sound true.

The new journey begins.

An instagram taken by Catherine from Metro.

Pachyderm pack in, more tuning and sound samples.

Saturday I packed Phil the Elephant into the car, drove to the Civic and assembled him in the Taj Mahal room ready for the show next weekend.  Everything still fits in the car, including a computer to run the slideshow from.  It's a fair walk from the loading bay to the rooms we are performing in, and it's hot work carrying an Elephant.   I assemble the Elephant with a little help.  I can almost put the Elephant up on my own, but it really needs someone to support the front legs while I manouver the backbone in place, and support the backbone while I slide the rear legs in.  Once assembled Phil looks quite at home in the Taj Majal room.   Various people have a play on the Elephant so I can stand back and see/hear it all from a distance.  It looks and sounds amazing, and I come to the realisation that I have, indeed, created quite an astonishing musical Elephant.  

After setting up everything that can be set up, and mics attached I remove the Kundi and Marimba and come home.

Sunday I intend to have a day off from Elephant related activities, but I can't resist doing some more Kundi practice and retuning the Marimba.  The tuning was pretty good, but I wasn't quite happy with it, the whole instrument was a little sharp, and the notes weren't quite in harmony.   A couple of the musicians who played the marimba were polite about the tuning, but it was clear that the off notes were obvious.

Getting the marimba to this close has taken hours of tuning, so I had been trying to convince myself that it was OK as I was a bit reluctant to do more tuning as there is the risk of going too far and ending up with a worse tuning.  But in the end I won't be happy with tuning this bad so I bite the bullet and start tuning from the lowest note.  Fortunately I'm only trying to shave about a quarter tone off most of the notes, so it doesn't take that long.  I realise that the tuning was quite 'stretched' as I end up having to shave nearly a tone off the higher notes.

I finally have a tuning that I'm happy with.  There's still room for more fine tuning but it's definitely a lot better.

Here is a video of me playing the final Marimba, this is really the first time I've ever tried to play one of these.   I'll have to improve a bit by Thursday, although the Marimba will mostly be played by Phil Dadson on the night of the performance.

Here's a video of me playing a couple of tune fragments on the Kundi.  The first tune is the tuning melody, Wili pai sa sunge.

The words, which I am not going to sing just yet, go like this.
Wili pai sa sunge
Mu ta kundi ki bi bialeu kindi
Kuluo pai sa sunge

Which is approximately translated as
Something a little, this is of work.
One must play the harp and sing its song too.
The old things are the work.

The second piece is Nzanginza mu du kporani yo - The harp is in our village.

An Elephant is launched.

It is amazing how much Elephant there is to paint.  The second and third coats go on much more easily than the primer.

The only thing left to do is add the eyes, which are sleighbell bells, and launch the Elephant.

Team Elephant.  Nic, Nic, Cath, Raewyn, Peter and Derek.

This magnificent Elephant would not have possible without the efforts and support of the people in this picture.

The original trip through Africa in 1991 was launched with flat warm champagne from the night before, as it was dark and cold when we were drinking it.  This Elephant was launched with some rather nice French champagne, cold and fizzy, and although it is dark, it is warm outside.

I am naming the Elephant Phil, in honour of Phil Gustafson. 1945-2012. rest as you see fit Phil.

Elephant painting volunteers...

There's a lot of Elephant to paint, and it will need at least a primer/undercoat and top coat.  Painting an Elephant is a lot more fun with friends and Nic and Nic have volunteered to help.  All I have to do is find some paint and decide on paint and colour.  Prefereably a cheap paint, as this project is now quite over budget.  I have a look under the house, and find a tin of blue grey colour.  I try painting some onto a plywood off cut to see what it looks like.  While this is drying I have a look at the head, the filler we'd put on the screw holes just before transporting it home had fallen out in transit.  I go to where I last saw my tub of instant filler.  The filler isn't there, but my foot bangs into a paint bucket.  The colour is 'Fossil', which is the perfect name, and the perfect brownish/white colour.

The Elephant needs to be sanded before painting, but it is hard to dismantle on my own.  While I'm waiting to Nic and Nic to arrive I start on modification of one of the tusks into a side blown horn.   Making an end blown horn would be quite easy, but I decide on the side blown partly because it is a traditional instrument, but mostly because kneeling down and blowing into an Elephant tusk will look far too silly.  I drill a hole large enough to fit a trumpet mouthpiece.  It makes a sound very much like a conch shell but looks quite silly more like a piece of drug paraphernalia that a musical instrument.  So I chop the end off the mouthpiece, make a larger hole, glue the mouthpiece in place and end up with something very much like the traditional side blown horn.

Side blown horn.

Next step, sanding and priming.

Nicole sanding

Nic and Nic, the ace painting team.

The garden takes on a slightly surreal quality with Elephant bones drying in a daliesque fashion.

Completed head and tuned marimba.

Tuesday night, off to my brothers house to finish the head and bring the Elephant home.  The Elephant had miraculously had screw holes, dents and little bits of missing ply filled by my brother on monday night.  This was a very pleasant surprise as it will save me from needing to do this tonight or tomorrow and means I now have a decent chance of getting a coat of paint on the Elephant in time for packing in at the venue on Saturday morning.

The head is pretty close to being complete, but it needs an extra piece of ply at the back of the head to hide the internal bracing.   Just as we put the head on for a final fitting more people pop by to have a look at the Elephant.  This time Nic and Nic.  Nic made the excellent tusks and finally has a chance to see what they look like installed into an Elephant.   "It's much bigger than I imagined", he says.  

I think it's fair to say it is bigger than any of us imagined.

Now for the moment of truth, can we fit the completed Elephant with head, and tusks, into the car.  I put the backbone, legs, ribs, workmate and spare ply into the car exactly the same as last time.  I have a photograph of the legs in place to work from as there is probably only one possible way to achieve this.  Head version 1.0 fitted easily into the passenger seat, but head version 2.0 is bigger and less flexible.  This isn't going to work.

We haul the workmate and ribs out of the boot and try the head in there.  It fits perfectly, with the ear just missing the boot hinge.  The ribs fit around and behind it, and the workmate (which won't usually be travelling with the Elephant) fits in the back seat with the legs.

I drive the Elephant home and, with a little help, put him back together.

It's not yet 22:00 so I tune some more marimba bars.  I have about two more bars which need a lot of retuning before getting to the almost in tune bars.  An hour later it is all pretty well in tune and the bars all sound pretty good.  One of the smallest bars is still a semi-tone sharp, but I need to use the little drum sander and drill to tune that one and it is too late at night, so it will have to stay sharp until tomorrow.  One of the 'make your own marimba' clips I found on YouTube seems to have a similarly semi-tone sharp bar near the top, so if I run out of time and leave this sharp I will claim that this is a traditional tuning.

Now I can string the bars together.

Threading bungy cord.

I thread some bungy cord through the holes in the bars, with rubber washers to separate them.

Final positioning

Then put hooks in the marimba frame to hold the cord in place.  I take the Marimba inside and play my special new instrument comissioning melody to Raewyn, and the Marimba is complete.

Completed Elephant with instruments.

Here is the completed Elephant with main instruments attached.   

The tusks still need to be drilled to allow them to be blown, but they are so magnificent I've been leaving this until last - also I needed to be sure that whatever method we used to mount them would still allow a side blown mouthpiece.

Next step painting, working out  some tunes and finding a collaborator who is in town for the performance.

More bars, more ribs, and more heads.

I am starting to run out of time.  There is only one more week left for construction, and more importantly only one more weekend.  I still have to finish the Marimba/Balafon, finish the head, finish some ribs, sand and paint the Elephant and turn my vague musical ideas into a piece.  I also have to find a collaborator to help me play the Elephant.  This is proving more difficult than I anticipated as the obvious and usual suspects are either out of town, or involved in other pieces in Bathing With Elephants... that will be happening at the same time as my piece.

Friday night I make some more Marimba bars intending to get the marimba ready for stringing up on Saturday.  I started with three long pieces of Mahogany, two were darker wood and one lighter in colour.  We cut and planed the wood until we had what I thought were enough bars.  Most of the wider bass bars were from the lighter piece of wood and when I start working on them it becomes obvious that they are going to be a problem.  Some of them split early on, and the one I manage to cut to approximate pitch just sounds dull.    So, finishing the Marimba will have to wait until tomorrow.

Saturday morning I pack the Elephant in the car and drive it over to my brother's house.  We will be fitting the Marimba frame and hopefully making a new head, so the entire animal needs to be transported.

The first job is to rout the remaining ribs, we use a slightly quicker method for holding them, so each one can be routed in one pass each side, instead of moving clamps a couple of times.

Rib about to be routed.

Next we cut some additional bars on the table saw.   Once the new bars are cut I need to find the node points using more salt.  Knowing the node points is important for two reasons, firstly material to tune the bar is removed from between the node points of the fundamental.  Secondly this is where the supporting string/cord holes will be drilled.   The various marimba making sites I have read as research suggest checking the final node points after rough tuning and drill the holes then.  I check a few of the roughly tuned bars and the nodes are as close to the original lines as I'm ever going to be able to drill, so we set up a guide and mark on the drill press plate and drill all the holes in all the bars.

The Marimba is going to sit just over the ribs and if everything has gone to plan there will be room to fit a removable frame.  The audience will be looking from the other side, so it will look like ribs are being played.  The frame looks simple to make, but there are some complicated angles to be worked out to allow it to sit nicely on the strange shaped shoulders and hips.  

Frame loosely clamped and bars placed for checking.

The last thing we do on Saturday is fix blocks to hold the tusks.

Fixing the excellent tusks really start to make it look like an Elephant.

I leave the Elephant snug in my brothers garage and take the bars home to try and tune a few.

Sunday is pretty much taken up with designing and building a plywood head.  Head version 1, the foam sheet head, is already starting to fall apart so it's obviously not going to last.  Head version 2 is going to be made from plywood like the rest of the Elephant.  We start with a new cardboard mockup (I made one earlier before head version 1).

Cardboard mockup.

Then, build the head up with ply, which involves some complicated angles and mitre saws.

Most of the head.

This takes most of the day, but we finally have a pretty decent looking head on the Elephant.  The trunk and tusks finish off the look.  The Elephant is complete (although not finished).

We carry the Elephant out onto the driveway for a bask in the sunshine.  The neighbours look astonished and come over and have a closer look at what all these noisy power tools have been working on.

People walking by in the street are beguiled by the Elephant and come for a closer look.

Shanti plays a tune on the Kundi.

Ear drum

I go home and tune some more marimba bars.

Monday night.  More Marimba bar tuning.

I started tuning the highest notes, then went to the lowest notes and tuned them.  Counting the bars and notes it looks like there aren't enough whole tones to cover the difference between the highest and lowest note.  I can really only make bars lower in pitch (they can be sharpened, but not as easily), so I make the lowest note even lower.  This takes it to C, which is nice, but I think I will still have a couple of keys left over, and may need to make some additional higher bars, eventually.