Crafting with Waste: From Trash to Treasure
Product: The Bottle Bass
Drawing attention to plastic pollution across our global oceans through rethinking the value and potential of discarded materials.
Ongoing Process Documentation & Musical Score
Project Brief
Undertake an iterative design process crafting a functional music instrument out of discarded materials. In the process, research the sonic, ergonomic, and aesthetic potential of different waste materials, documenting these explorations. Develop and refine the musical instrument, taking a wide range of considerations into account, make a 1-2 page musical score in relation to your instrument, and create a 30 sec - 2 min video of the final product.
Initial Thoughts
I really enjoy thinking about how to give things a second (or third) life. I have spent a lot of time thinking about especially food waste and how we could repurpose some common and very useful food scraps (e.g. avocado peels) into alternatives for materials that traditionally are harmful to source/produce or work with (e.g. leather). As such this project is very exciting to me in concept but simultaneously due to its time frame and multiple deliverables feels daunting, particularly the thought of producing a promotional video for the finished instrument, as video is not a strength of mine.
One of the transferrable learnings from my last project was to be even more strict with my time. Looking at my calendar & commitments, I realistically have a maximum of 16 hours to dedicate to this project including 9 hours of studio time, across the next 9 days. Of these, I am estimating that I will require 3 hours to craft the promotional video, another 2 hours to create the score sheet, 2 hours to write up the ongoing process documentation and reflection, leaving 7 hours for material experimentation and iteratively crafting the instrument, which I will tentatively split 3:4. I think this will give me enough time to experiment with a broad range of materials and ideas while still allowing me to be on track to complete the instrument on time with multiple iterations.
Brainstorm
My first thought turning trash into something useful and valued, is the issue of ocean plastic and our approach to discarding materials. We rarely pause to think about the value something could bring beyond the purpose it was specifically designed for, causing us to throw out tons of potentially useful items. Many of these make their way into our oceans where they harm the marine life, and in turn, human life through the consumption of seafood. I want to use this project to draw attention to the issue of plastic pollution and inspire a different way of thinking about waste.
Framing my approach, the first question that comes to mind is "what is considered an instrument?" What about a "good" instrument? Is it about the instrument itself, or can a great musician make something good of any instrument put in front of them? How do you even define "good" when it comes to art, as it is arguably subjective? I don't think that this project (or any project for that matter) will necessarily answer the above questions, but to create parameters for my iterations and self-critique, the below points from our first studio on this topic provide a useful starting point.
Process
First studio: gathering different materials and experimenting with their capacity to produce sound. Materials I had available were different sizes and shapes of cans, an old charging cable which I cut up to extract its copper wires, a foam button, a metal hook, a PVC pipe, and a plastic sheet.
To incorporate the ocean theme, I initially wanted to approach the project as a sound concept - recreating ocean/beach sounds with waste, so I went out to record these.
Follow this link to listen to the sound recordings.
More material exploration
Playing with the first string iteration and creating a drum kit
More instrument ideas on paper
Feedback
Don't go with sound as a concept instead of an instrument or approach the project from thinking of instrument ideas. Rather, take a sound from the materials you have and explore what you could do with it.
- sound that was chosen: the inside of the bike tire
Working with the bike tire to make it more easily playable, starting to think of portable drum kit/creativity kit incorporating multiple interfaces that can make different sounds. Wanted to incorporate glass shards (I dropped a bottle) on the outside (think of a xylophone type sound) but turned out to be a hazard due to the sharp edges, so turned into making a shaker instead to keep them contained.
Bike Tire - trying to find a way to make it both more playable and aesthetic
Too much movement and too light in itself, needs to be attached to something else
Glass Shard Shaker
Materials used at this stage
Portable Drumkit
Thoughts
While I had followed feedback received I didn't like where this project was taking me. In terms of its function, aesthetic, and sound potential it "did not spark joy", to quote Marie Kondo. Thinking back to the concepts and questions framing my approach to "what makes a (good) instrument", I believe emotion may be one of the most crucial parts to creating a good instrument/music. To me, noise or sound is by no means the same as music, and I did not find this type of "instrument" inviting or enjoyable to play, so I decided to start again from scratch, returning to my idea of linking the instrument to a wider issue and taking my learnings to produce something with better sound/music potential.
Round Two - String Instrument
First few iterations, using a cardboard tube, yarn, bike tire & half a plastic bottle
Yarn creates sound when hitting the tube, but doesn't create enough vibration to be heard on its own. It becomes loose easily. Rubber bridge did not work, partly because of its material and shape dampening sound, partly due to the cardboard pipe not allowing for the string to be tightened enough (it would just rip into the tube).
Plastic bottle provides much better resonance and depending on its circumference (and therefore air inside) changes pitch.
Pitch changes
First attempts at adding a body using a plastic bottle, to create a chamber that will amplify the sound from the string.
Attaching the cardboard contraption to the cut open bottle did not work - unable to produce tension on the string.
Placing cardboard tube on top of the bottle neck dampened any sound, therefore cut bottle open and placed it inside. Still struggling to create enough tension through the string.
Using old fishing line instead as it has an improved frequency and pitch. Using a bottle cap (plastic) as bridge seems to work a lot better than rubber. Changing to a longer tube as this amplifies the sound more and changes the pitch.
Adding the bottle to amplify the sound. Areas for improvement: using different material for the neck, as cardboard dampens sound; change positioning of the bridge (it moves around a lot - noticed that the sound is best when closer to the bottle); individual pieces not attached to each other, very flimsy and hard to hold.
Sound is coming along great!
Having the string on the inside of the bottle all the way through creates unwanted friction and noise at the bottle neck.
Swapping the cardboard tube for a PVC pipe (left-over conduit).
Different bridge - plastic transmits sound much better
Placement of bridge closer to body is better - clearer and louder sound.
Supports the vibration of the string (sound quality) well, makes the instrument more stable overall. However, strings still on the inside and individual components not held together.
Having the string on the inside of the amplifier (fed through the pipe) was creating problems for the sound potential, placement of bridge, and ability to attach neck & body together while also creating tension through the string.
Filing down the top of the neck/pipe and bottom of the bottle to feed string through and make sure it stays in place. Trying another bridge (but the medicine dispenser still comes out on top).
Filed parts cause unwanted friction and string adjustability is still poor.
At this point, I had learned from my previous iterations and had a strong vision of what I wanted to achieve. I needed to attach the string in a way that didn't require cutting into the bottle and provided more stability & longer life of the string; create a mechanisms that would allow tightening of the string (as it's impossible to get a fishing line taught to the point of being tuned and playable while tying small knots by hand); place the bridge on top of the amplifier to allow for better sound transmission. I researched similar projects to get an idea of how to solve my problem. This video gave me another way to adjust tension, this one was very helpful in further understanding how to create string instruments from waste in general, and through it I found another video that had the perfect solution to my problems and taught me how to connect my individual pieces without tools by using string tension and making a sliding knot at the back of the instrument to adjust this tension.
New design with Sprite bottle (bottom design prefect to feed strings through without any needs for tools), gathering feedback, adding slider (collaboration), rethinking aesthetic.
Feedback
Feels nice and sturdy; easy to hold; self-explanatory to use; offers options for creativity (using bottle and/or bridge to add percussion elements); adding a pick would be great; how to make playing it easier (added the slider); like the see-through design of the instrument.
From this feedback I added a slider (but kept it removable to make it optional) and a pick (again, optional). I removed the Sprite logo to make the most of the see-through (or sea-through ;)) design and then used old vinyl sheets and PVC tape to add ocean elements and thereby tie it back into the topic and origin story for this project.
Finished Product
Analysing it through the concepts framing my exploration above:
The Bottle Bass is primarily a string instrument but its body can also be used as a percussion instrument. Sounds can be produced quickly or slowly, simultaneously or individually. The long neck and tune-ability provides a wide range of frequencies and pitch. It is very durable due to the materials used and its assembly by tension. Its design is inviting, it is comfortable to hold, and functions as would be expected. The addition of the slider makes it easy to use for anyone and its sound potential invites to play around on it, sparking joy.
Want to give it a go? Get creative with your interpretation of the score below, or make your own!
Personal Reflection
At times this project was very challenging and I was stuck more than once. It was easy to get caught up in the feedback and while it was overall quite valuable, I am glad that I ended up returning to my original idea and learned from the experience.
