5-1-2013
bret harold hart
gear:
the objects in my yard that are visible in the accompanying photograph
stairs
handrail
pipes
firewood
bamboo
drum stand
sculpture
2" x 4"
2 thick mallets
This is the first of a series of pieces which will depend upon a live percussion track recorded ambiently in some specifically defined area of 'The Well', our outdoor art gallery. I suppose I'll spread out from here in future recordings in order to most easily keep track of what zones have already been used. This evening I stuck pretty closely to a consistent cadence, deploying it across everything within my reach inside a 20' x 8' zone near the entrance to the back yard.
The first iron and steel pipe sculpture I made here on our property in 2002 is called 'Pipe Drum', still standing, and I once recorded Clang Quartet (Scotty Irving) improvising on it for our improvised duets CD.
The name, "YARDTRAPTION" comes from my reading on the origins and development of the drum kit, or 'trap set' - from tribal to ritual to parade/martial to classical and through to jazz and rock to etc. Early New Orleans jazz drummers threw-together whatever available percussion instruments they could find that interested them into practical arrangements that came to be known as their very individuated "contraptions"; this term was later truncated to "traps" or trap set.