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!

29. Sonograph

After many years of experimenting with cymatics (see older posts) I came across another way of visualizing sound with vibrating membrane. This time I stretched a rubber membrane across the speaker and then attached a small piece of mirror in the middle where movement of the membrane is the most intensive. As a medium I used a laser beam focused directly on the mirror and reflected further on the screen. When speaker starts to move the membrane and the mirror, laser beam, following the sound with mathematical precision, draws dynamic lissajous figures on the screen.
And here's where's physics ends and creative process starts....

28. Chladni Plates

I was asked if I could make a sound sculpture with chladni plates for visitors of Museum of Senses in Split, Croatia. While playing with violin bow on different plates and trying to get interesting patterns I was amazed again and again with this simple contraption which principles were complete mystery two centuries ago.

After finishing the sculpture I spend some more time with plates to see what another configuration is capable. This time I used electric driver and theremin as a sound source and the results were quite exciting.

27. Operation DEWESoft

It was s month ago when Janez, a colleague and collaborator of mine, invited me to join him for a meeting at DEWESoft company from Trbovlje, Slovenia. Even if you're not from around here, you might have heard about Trbovlje in regards to Laibach, internationally renown alternative band which originally gathered in this industrial town almost four decades ago.

 Well, if we state that Laibach once put Trbovlje on the artistic map of the world, it is the DEWESoft who does that for Trbovlje on the global technological map. In short, company produces high-end measuring devices and develops special software which visualizes output data. Let me just mention that their systems were used on Space Shuttle launch pad, on International Space Station and for launching of Ariane rockets - you’d probably get the right impression on how very serious and passionate about their jobs these guys are.

So. It was quite an experience to sit at the table in their conference room and hear about how could we helped them. They were in midst of preparations for an annual conference for their partners and someone got an idea about a special musical performance, with music prepared especially for the occasion. And, for things not to be too simple, song has to feature one of their measuring modules as an instrument. Good. Things already felt interesting although we haven’t put down a single note yet. In fact, we never really use notes when composing, what we really needed at the moment was a place to experiment and rehearse with our retro futuristic gear.
In short: no problem. They calmly gave us an office in the basement and even door cards so we could come and work anytime as we wanted. As a long time freelancer I got scared for a moment that I got stuck with a regular job.

We had two weeks to accomplish the mission, so we brought basic equipment to the office and started right away. For the first few days there was not much to hear or show, since we spent it mostly on discussions about the composition and its performance with some loud beats thrashing through the building from time to time. And, the more the composition grew in our heads, the more gear appeared in the office. Which eventually become smaller and smaller. Cables, instruments, sound effects and metal rigs lying everywhere around, as always when we dive in the creative process. After few days, when we finally completed our project in the office was completely filled with kick, two toms, two snares, two drum pads, theremin, typewritter, efektor, dozens of cymbals, bells and coils, few effects, metal sheet, computer and, of course, our good ’ol friend, an angle grinder. Lots of toys for two pairs of hands.

The following days we finally took the sticks and tools in our hands and the basement area become loudly unsuitable for any serious work or even talk. Things couldn't get unnoticed and people started popping up, curiously checking what's going on. I appeared that Janez and I became quite an intriguing amusement during their work time. All of the guys seemed to be engineers, with some of them turned up to be musicians, so they quickly got an idea how to attach some sensors to our gear and visualize sound vibrations on their machines.

Finally, we had to incorporate one of those measuring devices into our composition. So, our team was briefly joined by new member Sašo who reprogramed their module into some kind of a rhythm machine which took a lead in a part of the composition.

Days flew by quickly as more and more fun escalated in our rehearsal room. One day we had an opportunity to meet Jure Knez and Andrej Orožen, the founders of the company. Duo, always sparkling with bright ideas, became quite enthusiastic about our work. It didn’t take long as they proposed a wish to perform with group of coworkers at the end of the conference. At first, quite surprised by their suggestion, we quickly picked ourselves up, got additional 20 barrels and held a special three-day workshop for them, to prepare their gig. Believe me, smashing a  metal barrel with XL wrench is not a piece of cake but Jure and Andrej didn't hesitate to get their hands dirty and easily learned the trick.

If you are interested in latest DEWESoft achievements, you will find the whole conference at a link bellow. Our performance starts on 27:00 and DEWESoft tribe rocks the place at the very end. Twice!

26. Kymatikon in Museum of Senses in Prague

Few months ago I was invited to design two sound installations for Museum of Senses in Prague. So I got the chance for further development of my recent Kymatikon prototypes. I built two devices: Chladni plate with frequency generator and three cymatic loudspeakers connected to the electronic drum pads and a theremin. While kids and their parents are turning knobs and hitting the drums to make some music, they can also observe exciting, non-linear dance of quartz sand under two plexi glass domes.

Beside Kymatikon there are other interesting things like vortex tunnel, bed of nails and different illusions regarding our sight and perception of space. So if you are visiting Prague I recommend you to take a look of the Museum as well.

25. The Stroj celebrates it's 20th anniversary

For the closing event of the succesfull exhibition about our work, we decided to perform live and loud. So we invited our former members to join us at the final part of performance. For the moment it seemed like they never left the band. The force is still alive and The Stroj is ready for another decade.

The Stroj collective would like to thank to Coal Mining Museum Velenje, director Stojan Špegel and the crew of Kunigunda Festival for their support on this project. 
Big thanks also goes to Arnold Marko, Tina Dervarič and Matej Loredan who made the video.

24. Grandioso

During preparations for The Stroj's anniversary concert in Coal Mining Museum complex in Velenje, we also managed to release The Stroj's latest single Grandioso. Video was made by Stane Špegel and beside some wild shots from our live performances it also contains some captures from the exhibition opening.

Free download is available here:
https://soundcloud.com/the-stroj/grandioso

23. Force of Sound / Rhythm of Time: The Stroj 1997 – 2017

Exhibition was held in industrial invironment of Coal Mining Museum of Slovenia in Velenje. Beside photographs, instruments and personal items we also invited our former members and collaborators to exhibit some of their works, connected with our story.

The Stroj collective would like to thank to Stojan Špegel, the curator of the museum, for invitation and assistance, Stane Špegel for his live act and Jure Longyka who held the opening.