thesis : shape : afterthoughts

There is some difference between the three-shapes-flutes.
I clearly hear the difference in pitch, I’m trained to hear that difference. And I do feel some difference in timbre, feeling warmer or rounder. However, it’s difficult to know what is influenced by what I hear, what I see or my imagination.

One of the differences is the difference in overtones, something I can’t hear but I could see in the Spectroid App. The difference in overtones between the three-shapes-flutes is too small to be able to detect.

Everyone that hears something is used to being aware of only the fundamental tone, but one can hear the difference between an instrument with a “rich” sound (with many overtones) and one that does not have overtones. Here two audios, one without harmonics and one with harmonics:

I remember during my bachelor, with Albert van Veenendaal, we spent time listening to the piano strings, listening to the small differences in timbre by slightly playing the same tone in a different way: rounder, direct, spiky, tender…

To make the three-shapes-flutes I made calculations with 2 decimals but finally it’s all just an approximation. The ceramic flutes are made by hand, not very precise. I make the flutes following the measurements, but there are many things that influence the tone: a little movement of my fingers makes the clay move inwards or outwards, when they dry they become smaller, by blowing them with my breath there is always a huge difference between blowing hard or soft and how much is hard or soft, etc.

But I see some humor here, this contrast between theoretical physics and craftsmanship.

Clay is one of the main materials I use in my practice. Why? One of the reasons is because I can shape the instruments by creating them with my own hands, shaping the sound. Clay asks for organic shapes without sharp edges and corners. I shape it, but the material has its own limits. Working with clay means collaborating with clay, water, gravity, temperature and time. The process of making demands a lot of care, day by day. From the beginning of a new work (birth) to the first encounter with an audience.

In one of my first conversations during my residency at the European Ceramic Work Center (EKWC) in 2022, I was explaining to Katrin König (one of the advisors of the EKWC) my plan to create the Sluice-flute. I was quite nervous, 1cm too little and it would not produce any sound. Then she explained to me that clay is not a precise material in a scale of a sculpture of 2 meters, 1cm is too precise. Clay changes over time: it dries, it shrinks, it has memory, you deal with gravity, with different drying stages and with baking it. After this conversation I decided to make it 10cm bigger, to be sure that it would sound.

21/10/2023 – Conversation with Annabel Schouten, a day after seeing the documentary ‘leaning in to the wind’ from Andy Goldsworthy

Imagine seeing Andy there, being in the tree.
Not climbing but being. And the tree holding him.
If I climb a tree I hold myself to the tree, but the tree also holds me.
If I push an object away, the object pushes me too.
Earth’s gravity pulls on us, but we also pull the Earth.
If I shape clay, clay shapes me.

*Goldsworthy … Laid across oak boughs to make shadows on the ground below. Dumfriesshire, Scotland. Photograph: Andy Goldsworthy*

epilog