CRWD 225 (WOOD*225) Making and Playing: Improvisational Musical Instruments

College of Art, Media & Design School of Art

3 credits 90.0 hours
200 level undergraduate course

The course will serve as an introduction to essential principals of sound mechanics and simple musical instrument design and building. Using essential materials and basic woodworking processes, these principals will be investigated in a manner that encourages spontaneity, critical awareness, and collaboration in design, making, and use. The goal is an integration of personal studio practice with the social environment of music and sound. The teaching method will combine lectures covering historical, cultural, and technical information with demonstrations of tool and material use. The importance of temporal and haptic experience in developing an appropriate level of workmanship will be stressed. Much student/faculty contact will be one on one and students will be expected to actively share critical input with each other. Students will learn to make simple musical instruments/sound objects that demonstrate the several basics means of sound production. A series of didactic demonstrations of mechanics, material possibilities, and techniques will be accompanied by presentations of ethnographic instruments, music, and social environments. Three projects of increasing complexity will ask for responses to this introductory material. Students will research and develop concept proposals for each assignment, working initially “solo” and later within the context of “duets” and “ensembles.” Within these varied contexts designs will be tested and implemented refining structure, material use, acoustic response, function relative to the body, and aesthetic content.

Prerequisites Complete 12 credits from subjects IMAG, TIME, OBJT and ENVI or FYWT*101 or FYWT*112

This course may be completed 2 times for credit