36. Federmeister - Tribe of Dionysus

I'm really satisfied with this latest piece of music directly from my workshop. I didn't planning to include any lyrics, but they just fell on a piece of paper while I was listening the recording before the sleep. In Slovene this time. And the chorus goes: "We're coming from the tribe of Dionysus..."

35. Wind harph

Nobody knows who was the first inventor of wind harph, but we can be quite sure they were already known in ancient times in Greece and East. The first exact description of the "modern" aeolian harp was made by the Jesuit and scientist Athanasius Kircher born in 1602 near Fulda in Germany. Although the instrument is 'officially' known for almost four centuries, it's still very rare and not many people know how it sounds.

After several years of research and many useless prototypes I finally managed to make the first fully functional wind harph. As the basic design of a harph is quite simple, the secret of its sound lies in proper tuning and orientation regarding general direction of the wind. During the process I often felt like a sailor learning about the wind on an unknown sea.

It's hard to explain overwhelming feelings when I put the harph outside on a windy day for the first time and it started to play immediately. I felt like I create a rare living being, finally awake to life. Its mysterious and harmonically rich sound unexpectedly comes and goes with the wind, varying in pitch and loudness. There's no way to force wind harph to sing. One should be patient waiting for the right wind to excite its strings with proper frequency and wake up the harph like a sleeping beauty. So its song is always a kind of a gift, caused by nature in accordance with skillful hands.

34. Sonic laboratory

I like to work with kids. I found it very challenging , especially keeping their attention focused when I want to explain them something they never heard and see before. One should use a lot of imagination and theatrical skills to hold their interest, otherwise they won't give a damn to your efforts.

This time I was invited to prepare an educational performance for elementary school in Laško with some additional students from other schools in our community. About 1000 pupils between 7 and 14 years filled up the main hall of local cultural center for 4 times.

I asked my nephew Franko to help me with performance and add some of his jokes into the scenario. We also prepared a rap song with his lyrics to make things more exciting.

I took a role of mad professor and Franko was himself, accidentally lost in my 'Sonic laboratory'. I've explained him my method of work and showed him what sound does with powder and liquid.

I also told him about neanderthal flute from Divje babe cave, the oldest instrument found so far, dating more than 40.000 years back. As an instrument builder using mostly discarded materials, I feel closely related to our ancestors which used to make music out of anything appropriate they could find.

After final song we invited most curious pupils to join us on stage and take a look on my sound devices like efektor, theremin and cymatic machines for sound visualization. Their enthusiasm exceeded my expectations and gave me a great reward for all the efforts.

33. Federmeister - Last Chance for a Dance

Winter was not so hard so I managed to build my new working place which could be used as a workshop for constructing my instruments either as rehearsal studio for my musical projects. I set up my musical rig and spent a week rehearsing my solo repertoire, composing and recording some new materials. Here's 'Last Chance for a Dance' from 'Renegade' performance.
Stay tuned for some new stuff in following weeks...

32. Spider

When Stringer was finished I had to find a place on stage for it. As our stage is already full of equipment I decided to incorporate it into the Spider, a construction which used to hold our cymbals. The more I thought how to do that, the more clearer become that the whole Spider needs upgrade. I wanted to give the player more options so I also included an e-drum, new coil and three axes for sound effects and more dangerous outlook. And I also changed the base from rectangular into triangular.
Voila!

31. Plamen v prsih / Flame In the Chest

The most spectacular production with The Stroj collective this year took place at Ljubljana Castle. Regarding the process of creation and lots of pyrotechnics on the stage we decided to name it Plamen v prsih / Fire In The Chest.
No PR bullshit will follow, just some photos and a video. I hope you're gonna feel some excitement and thrill we had on stage during the performance.

30. Stringer

STRINGER

What would you get if you merge a harph and a crossbow?
Would it be lethal?
Would it be loud?
Would it be heavy?
Hell yeah and I named it Stringer!

There were two things I had to find before the final construction: truck leaf spring and piano strings.    It took me a few months to find them, but I was lucky enough so I didn't have to buy them. Luka Alkimist (and also a blacksmith) gave me a leaf spring and Iztok Melanšek from M4 Music Store gave me the whole set of piano strings which he held as a decoration on the wall of his shop. Thank you again guys, I did exactly what I promised!

When the frame was finished I called Kosta, master of blues guitar playing and making, if he could help me with installing the magnets. I've bought 6 Fender Jazz bass magnets and hoped for the best while Kosta installed them into the frame.

Stringer finally found its place on the rig of Spider in company with set of cymbals, e-drum, coil and three axes. Now it's time to discover its capabilities and learn to play it. What a thrill!