Workshop building your own Home Swinger

Duration: 4 hours

-------- A more extended Dutch explanation about this workshop can be found hier ---------

Ryan of the Oscillations Festival in Belfast asked me to give a workshop in which I could do something with building an instrument. This evolved to a new idea, I hadn’t thought of before. I’ve thought out a simple screw-and-play version of the Moodswinger.

Within 4 hours a Do-It-Yourself Moodswinger, renamed as the Home Swinger, will be ready. Participating on the workshop requires no special skills or handyness. It’s as difficult as building a piece of IKEA furniture. Not slick designed. Function is goal no.1.

In advance of the workshop I prepare 4 pieces of wood. Shaped in the required sizes and predrilled with holes. Some easy to employ machine heads for the strings, one pickup (good quality, equal to Fender) + an on/off switch, a jack output, 12 strings, a few screws, bolts and nuts and some metal for the bridges. The soldering will be done by me at the end of the day.

The sound of the instrument is equal to the real Moodswinger.

The participators pay for their own material, which is about 125 euro. Four sets of strings are included and required the Home Swinger. You can choose to use 4x3 plain or 4x3 wound strings.

Here you can listen to Canary and MoodslayerJessie made with The Luyas:

www.myspace.com/theluyas

As a follow up of the workshop I often arrange a concert with the group of participants. After a brief practise during daytime we play a musical piece for about 20 minutes. It’s a loud noise rock performance in the tradition of the well-known Chatham and Branca symfonies like G3 and the Ascension. Mine is played with 2 drummers, bass, 2 gtrs, at least 4 home swingers and my own improvisation.

It is a work in progress. I’m currently working this concept out a bit more to make the piece around 30 minutes.

Here’s a short fragment of the performance at the Le Guess Who? Festival 2009:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akGeXtQxbNs

Artists who own a Home Swinger: Micachu and the Shapes, David Holmes, Cercuiel (FR), Thread Pulls (IR), These Are Powers, A Place to Bury Strangers

Upcoming Workshops

See my agenda on home

Past Workshops

September 10^th 2009 @ Oscillations Festival, Belfast, Northern Ireland (finished 15 instruments)

September 18^th till 20^th 2009 @ Mon inouïe Symphonie Festival, Duinkirk, France (finished 14 instruments)

Spetember 23^th @ Nantes, France (at the Nantes University arranged by Alex of the Soy Festival) (finished 18 instruments)

November 26^th till 29^th 2009 @ Le Guess Who Festival, Utrecht, Holland, (finished 43 instruments)

Februari 23^th 2010 @ Knitting Factory, Brooklyn, NYC, USA, (finished 6 instruments)

Februari 24^th Eyedrum, Atlanta, GA, USA, (finished 15 instruments)

March 5^th @ Zadkine Pop Academy, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (finished 14 instruments)

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Workshop building your own Home Swinger

See also

Upcoming Workshops

Past Workshops