The Anarchestra is a collection of one-of-a-kind instruments, of all sorts, that are set up as an interactive art installation that anyone can come in and play. The instruments are designed to be tuned to the same key, making it easy for untrained musicians to play together.
Here’s another look at Thurlow, from Arizona Public Media:
Here’s a YouTube playlist that features a variety of videos about the Anarchestra:
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He says he built these instruments because he got tired of everything sounding the same…so he builds instruments that sound like all the instruments that sound the same…
I mean, it’s kinda cool on a creative level…but it just seems to me like stepping over a dollar to pick up a dime…I’ll stick to my synthesizers…
He’s using some principles of traditional music instruments, but his materials and methods are completely different. You seem to expect that he should ignore history and be 100% original, which is an unrealistic expectation. And I don’t think his instruments sound like their traditional counterparts.
I love his talent, passion and enthusiasm. And the truly original had daring ideas are so fun. I hope these will continued to be played for their lifetime.
Imagine if they were distributed across a suburb and people played sounds from their front yards at random. It would be otherworldly!
“it just seems to me like stepping over a dollar to pick up a dime”
Oh no, how dare someone create their own musical instruments. Don’t they know that they can just buy one off the shelf?!
These all sound like traditional instruments to you? I’m not sure we watched the same video. Sure there are some similarities, but really, it doesn’t exactly sound like the New York Philharmonic.
Hello,
I made this documentary about this person. I make documentaries about strange musical instruments. I can see you are a critic. These two musical creations are even more bizarre maybe you’ll find something you actually like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYgkW7taG5E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CE2YawEzac
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sjvA4mOqE4
I’m not hearing anything my ears like- sounds like a lot of banging on home built percussion to me, which is what it is really. I think saying “Spectrasonics needs to hire this guy” and “who needs synths” are pretty big stretches there.
I admire his creativity but I personally would never listen to music made on any of these… As Alien Child said I too will stick to my synthesizers 🙂
I think that a healthy sampling session could yield a great bank for Omnisphere, despite the admitted hard work of massaging it into shape. His studio is like Instant Harry Partch. There are some percussion tones we’ve heard before, but there are quite a few unique items, too. At least it could yield a good patch set for Ableton from Puremagnetik. Any fresh twist on percussion is especially welcome. Its fresh clay.
Tom Waits probably has all of these.
It’s exactly what I thought when I discovered this guy ! 🙂
great stuff!!!!
Love this kind of thing!.. truly industrial
sweet! very reminiscent of harry partch’s inventions, except they’re tuned to a more conventional scale in this video.
My first thought was how fun it would be to play all these wonderful things! My second thought was how much money this guy would make if he bought a copy of Kontakt and got busy sampling.
just sampling them and use in some our late devices may be interesting but that is not the way they are meant I think… Music isn’t only what you hear thru headphones or monitors sometimes, the way how it is played and looks is also a part of music, or musical experience. “making music” is not the only way to define what music is on a creator side.
freak show
This is great.
Unfortunately this photographer does not know dick about recording sound. Too bad.
I understand that these are handmade and original,
but where are the new unheard sounds?
Nice,nice…