Development and further development of instruments

During the last century percussion music has become more and more popular.
The development of sound colours, materials and technical supports of percussion instruments have been pushed up to a high level of intensity.
An inner force and fascination with interesting sounds is driving me to further developments and new creations of instruments.
The production of these ideas was realised in collaboration with my father Nicolantonio Melchiorre, for what I am very thankful.

Nicophone

This instrument is built out of a massive steel pipe which has a base tone. With lots of fins which are cutten in the pipe the instrument gains a wide range of harmonic overtones.
It depens on the hardness and measure of the sticks you are playing with how loud the instrument sounds and which overtone-fins are reacting on the hits.

Albero Sonoro

The soundinstallation ALBERO SONORO is another work in collaboration with Nicola Melchiorre.
It’s an instrument built with around 70 metall objects. Like the name says, its a sound tree. The different objects are usualy used in a garage to repair cars. But by being hanged on the treelike construction they change their life. They become sounding instruments. The objects sound all quite different. The crew is very bright, the wrench very dark and low, and so on.
I selected the objects of the Albero Sonoro out of hundreds of tools in a three years period. Finally I got a selection with all kinds of different and very interesting sounds.
The italian composer Francesco Maria Paradiso wrote the piece „Spazio Veneziano“ for ALBERO SONORO and electronics.
By playing the Albero Sonoro the listener gets invited into a world of sound produced by objects to whom we dont give a lot of attention, but which have a lot to say...

Download of the Presentation of Spazio veneziano

Marimbaphone-tables

The problem of fast stickchanges on the marimbaphone was the initial ignition to develop a solution.
Small tables to put on the sticks behind and under the bars were fixed on a tube which is fastened on the construction of the marimbaphone.
With this solution on one hand fast moves to change the sticks are possible and on the other hand the changing of the sticks looks like a snatch into a magic box because of the invisible tables.

Belltree ("Banda Turca")

I created this belltree for the Opera "Italiana in Algieri" of Gioachino Rossini which had been performend at the theatre of Basel. The belltree satisfied the audience with his powerful sound and visual effect. The Opera of Köln borrowed the belltree for the same opera in 2007.

Prepared Vibraphone

With different aditionals the vibraphone's sound spectrum has been enlarged.
Nylon strings are on one side attached on a rectangular construction and on the other side on the bars.
The strings can be pulled from the bar against the construction and backwards with some rosin on the fingers.
Thereby a vibration is occuring and crossing over to the bars.

Cowbells and Crotales are fixed behind the vibraphone so that the audience can't see them. In the same time your are playing these instruments for example with a bow you can play on the vibraphone bars. The sound of the crotales seems to be an overtone of the vibraphone. The interesting sounds of the prepared vibraphone seem to be generated electronicaly.

Francesco Maria Paradiso, Professor for Composition in Milano (Italy) composed the solopiece "Waves" for this prepared vibraphone and electronic which was premiered by Domenico Melchiorre at the "Lucerne Festival" in August 2006.

Bambusblocks

Bamboo is an appropriate material to form templeblocks. The range from deep to high tones is wide.
The sound is very warm and round. The cuts on the sides of the cylindrically formed bamboo are making powerful swingings possible. The instrument has a natural resonance space where wooden sounds are wonderful formed and released.