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The Springboard: The Joy
of Piezo Disk Pickups for
Amplified Coil Springs
Eric Leonardson
ABSTRACT
T
he Springboard is an electroacoustic instrument that I have performed on almost exclusively since 1994
[1] (Fig. 1). Its invention was inspired by a desire to make new
and unusual sounds with coil springs and other materials not
normally considered to possess musical or even sonic potential. Using the piezo disk contact microphone [2] was key to
bringing the Springboard to life, and the mic is now a common tool for any practitioner of experimental music, instrument inventors and most of my students.
NEW WAYS TO MAKE SOUND
My entry into the world of sound began as a visual arts student
interested in ideas and creative opportunities offered by contemporary art, music and—at the time—new electronic media. Setting aside the manual tools of pencils and paintbrushes
for the nonmanual ones of video, audiotape and sound synthesis presented a challenge. Over the years, the loss of immediacy in producing audible and visual results continued to
frustrate me. The promise of technology to make things never
heard or seen before possible was failing, or at least inhibited
by what traditional tools could do in an immediate and natural fashion. Initially, there was the problem of cost. As secondhand computers became affordable in the early 1990s, I
sensed that the obstacle was not my failing but that of the interface. Its limited possibilities for real-time generation and
manipulation of sounds kept me dissatisfied, whether I was
working in the studio or in a live context. Art-making was literally out of my hands.
On meeting composers Nicolas Collins and Elliott Sharp in
the late 1980s, I gained an appreciation for self-built instruments and hardware controllers. As I lacked the knowledge
required to build and program relatively complex electronic
hardware and software, it was not until I participated in Hal
Rammel’s first instrument invention workshop at the Experimental Sound Studio [3] that I found my answer in two simple devices: the inexpensive piezo disk contact microphone
and the horsehair bow.
This lo-tech marriage of the acoustic with the electronic
served as a rewarding if not brilliant point of entry into a new
world of possibilities in the exploration of the inaudible and
seldom heard potential of nonmusical materials and their use
in a wide range of live and recorded works across the art disciplines and diverse communities of free improvised music,
radio art and theater.
T
Nearly any material and object in
the everyday environment has the
physical ability to vibrate in the audible frequency range. Once amplified, its potential for art-making
is just a matter of the time required
to become familiar with the range
of behavior of the sound.
Part of the beauty of the piezo
contact mic lies in its ability to allow
the sound explorer a way to get
around the engineering and design
challenges that a “proper” acoustic
instrument presents, the interre-
he Springboard is a do-ityourself instrument made from
readily available materials: An
amplified soundboard makes the
vibrations of coil springs and a
variety of other small and
nonprecious objects audible.
Thanks to a simple piezo
contact microphone, the Springboard’s humble constitution
belies the richness of its
sounds, a signature of the
author’s activities in live and
recorded works across many art
disciplines.
Fig. 1. The Springboard, a self-built electroacoustic instrument
made from coil springs, a walker and a wooden soundboard
amplified with a single piezo pickup. (Photo © Eric Leonardson)
Eric Leonardson (artist, educator), 421 N. Drake Avenue, Chicago, IL 60624-1368, U.S.A.
E-mail: <[email protected]>. Web site: <ericleonardson.org>.
Sound examples related to this article are available at <ericleonardson.org/composer>.
©2007 ISAST
LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 17, pp. 17–20, 2007
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lated material properties of resonance,
impedance, mass, etc. Once one has a
mixer, amplifier and loudspeakers, the
price of a piezo contact mic is negligible,
and its ability to act as an aural microscope into unknown sonic yet entirely
physical aspects of any object or material
is truly exciting, if not amazing.
The Springboard came to be in a
heuristic effort to unlock these potentials, and as long as one accepts them on
their own terms, this assemblage of thriftstore finds and everyday detritus offers
the immediacy of an acoustic instrument’s sound and physicality, producing
a sound that some believe to be synthesized (Fig. 2).
CHOICE OF OBJECTS
Fig. 2. A cartoon drawing of the Springboard documents an early stage of its development,
revealing parts such as a large can that were later discarded in favor of objects that proved
to possess greater playability and sonic variety. (Illustration © Eric Leonardson)
Fig. 3. The author playing the Springboard with two cello bows for the
Synapse Electronic Arts Festival kickoff party at Sonotheque, Chicago, 2007.
(© Eric Leonardson. Photo © Charlie Simokaitis.)
Enduring the same quip after many a
performance—“Did you swipe that
[walker] from some little ol’ lady in the
street?”—I matter-of-factly explain that
years ago my neighborhood had an abundance of thrift stores where second-hand
walkers sold for $5–10. Thus, in true starving-artist fashion, I made use of a very affordable and portable stand on which to
place the amplified board. The walker
serves its function better than heavy and
expensive drum hardware.
When I am asked how I came up with
the idea for this instrument, my story begins with a list of aural encounters: ominous tones caused by brushing against
the large coil springs that help raise and
lower garage doors, the use of everyday
kitchenware and automotive parts in artmusic percussion ensembles and the distinctive sounds of a coil spring reverb
—especially when given a hard knock.
HOW TO BOW
A SPRING
A coil spring is similar to a free bar that
can be excited at many different points
along its length all at nearly the same
time. My typical method for activating
the spring relies on the use of a cello
bow. This is a third element I employ
to produce a sound that is distinctly different from the familiar “boing” and
“sproing” sounds of coil springs being hit
or shaken: Bowing enables tones or
drones to be produced that with practice
can be rich and varied, similar to yet unlike any cello the listener has heard before. Fans of Robert Rutman’s instrument
the Steel Cello [4] or of those rich granular synthesis sounds may enjoy the dense
timbres and slowly shifting formants,
which can evoke vocal choruses and trombone-like drones.
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Leonardson, The Springboard
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Bowing is my preferred approach to
coil springs over percussive techniques
because it excites and sustains sounds
over a longer time with richer harmonic
content. Bowing at any angle other than
transverse avoids jamming the bow between the coils. More rosin and pressure
than one normally uses on a cello string
works best.
With practice, one can vary the inharmonic tones produced by bowed coil
springs with changes in bow pressure and
direction, along with manual muting and
manipulation of the spring. The tones
can range from an agglomeration of
pitches to an indefinitely pitched drone,
often with a large amount of low-frequency content. With five stretched
springs providing six spans, each with its
own fundamental, it is not difficult to use
two bows at once, one in each hand (Fig.
3). Bowing close to the supports as with
a sul ponticello (near the bridge) technique brings out the higher partials, en-
abling bittersweet melodic passages to be
made, while a sweep of the bow across the
span of the spring shifts the pitch down
to the lower fundamental(s). Modulating
the bow pressure during a bow stroke
varies the frequency response. When one
hand is free while the other bows, the
spring can be held in various ways to
dampen it and emphasize more definite
pitches.
With the board serving as a small tabletop and all its other myriad parts, the
Springboard produces a multitude of
sounds, tones and textures that enable
me to play the roles of musician and Foley effects artist both at once or one
against the other. With my interests in
radio, electroacoustic music and live performance, I seem to have found the device—or assemblage of devices—that
enables me to make sounds that work in
all these diverse but related fields. Over
the years it seems that the productive effort has begun to pay off with recognition
and increasing interest in spite of its odd
sound, appearance and humble constitution.
AUXILIARY OBJECTS
AND EFFECTS
In addition to bows, I have found friction
mallets made from rubber balls and
wooden skewers do a wonderful job on
the quasi-daxophone [5] (e.g. paint
sticks) part of the instrument. Here are
three strips of wood that, thanks to the
warp of the board’s top surface, can be
pressed down upon to vary their pitch as
I bow their edges, eliciting high-pitched
squeals with an eerily vocal quality. With
the friction mallets on these sticks, I can
produce moans and what some refer to
as “whale song.”
The Springboard’s parts include eyebolts, a thick 2-x-6-in board, an aluminum
walker, small flat wood sticks, plastic
combs, a grill, four narrow coil springs,
Fig. 4. Close-up view of Springboard shows the coil springs, grill, weathered wood surfaces, sheet-metal resonator and wood slats
that produce the “daxophone” sound. (Photo © Eric Leonardson) Also pictured are auxiliary objects used for making various sounds,
including a large rubber band stretched around the eyebolts and grill, a friction mallet, a music box mechanism and a metal box
that houses a 20,000-ohm potentiometer.
Leonardson, The Springboard
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one large detachable coil spring and
a metal box that houses a 20,000-ohm
potentiometer. This last item does not
produce a sound itself. It controls the
“feedback level” on an Oberheim Echoplex Digital Pro™ [6] that I use in occasional solo performances.
I began using the Echoplex (in 1999)
to sample, loop and overdub the sounds
of my playing in real time for my performances with Plasticene [7]. It is a
simple foot pedal, consisting of a row of
eight momentary switch pushbuttons,
so it provides hands-free control of its
functions. I use it in occasional solo performances, too. In free-improvised ensemble situations, I avoid the Echoplex,
because the musical flow never warrants a continuously repeating sound, especially when performing with highcaliber instrumentalists who shift, halt
or change directions faster than I can
clumsily locate and step on a button with
my foot pedal while both hands are engaged. In addition, given the sensitivity
of the pickup, the Springboard does
amplify external sound. When that happens to be another musician’s playing,
echoing or looping his or her sound
is not always welcome or musically appropriate.
Other auxiliary objects I use on the
Springboard include a pocket radio with
a piezo disk plugged into its earphone
output and used as a lo-fi speaker, large
rubber bands stretched around the eyebolts and grill, a music box mechanism,
a pewter goblet, a vibrating massager and
a bead chain (Fig. 4).
APPEARANCE FOLLOWS
FUNCTION
Leaving the visual appearance of the
Springboard unadorned preserves its
utilitarian origin, offering information
on the nature of its sound that for some
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Leonardson, The Springboard
may seem inconsistent with the character
of its sound output. Audience members
sometimes marvel at the simplicity of the
instrument after experiencing its rich
sound in performance. Absence of visual
enhancements maintains it as a sort of didactic tool that demystifies its creation,
showing what simple materials and skills
are required to begin making instruments of one’s own and hence serving as
an invitation to do so. In contexts where
the aesthetic effects of advanced technology, high craftsmanship and an aura
of fine, precious materials are valued or
even exalted, the Springboard’s humble
origins and deep sonorities stand as a
somewhat contrary aesthetic comment,
a reminder of what can be accomplished
without a big budget.
AGING AND THE
PRECIOUS JOY OF
NONPRECIOUS MATERIALS
Use of nonprecious materials means that
some practical concerns regarding theft,
damage and loss are reduced. What is irreplaceable is the amount of time committed to acquiring the skill to play it well.
Having a set of traditional drumming
skills [8] helps immensely, while my bowing technique is competent, having perhaps even a certain degree of virtuosity
according to some admirers.
The Springboard has improved with
age, gaining not only its worn surface
patina but a fuller bass sound that
negated the need for the equalizer in its
first 2 or 3 years of service. One of my
graduate students, J.C. Leowe, noted that
the wood “opens up” because vibrations
made to the wood actually change its resonant properties. Aside from changes in
moisture content, I found no scientific
explanation for this phenomenon, although all or most stringed instrument
players attest to it. What I can attest is that
the Springboard is simple in construction
yet rich in its potential for complex
sounds simply made.
References and Notes
1. An introduction to the Springboard resides online at <ericleonardson.org/instruments/index
.html>; an earlier article was first published in Experimental Musical Instruments 11, No. 4, 22–23 ( June
1996). On-line audio examples are at <ericleonard
son.org/composer/index.html>.
2. Two excellent “how-to” books for making piezo
disk pickups are Nicolas Collins, Handmade Electronic
Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking (New York: Routledge, 2006); and Bart Hopkin, Getting a Bigger Sound:
Pickups and Microphones for Your Musical Instrument
(Tucson, AZ: See Sharp Press, 2002).
3. Experimental Sound Studio (ESS) is a nonprofit
organization in Chicago, founded in 1986 for the production and promotion of innovative approaches to
the sonic arts. The mission of ESS is to make audio
technology accessible and affordable, as well as to encourage the creative process <www.exsost.org>.
4. Robert Rutman (b. 1931) is a visual artist and inventor of the Bow Chime and Steel Cello, instruments made of wire, steel rods and sheet metal.
Audio samples can be heard on his web site: <www
.rutman.de/>.
5. The daxophone is an instrument invented by Hans
Reichel that enables its player to amplify the vibrations of bowed, or otherwise excited, thin wooden
sticks of varying shape and species. Its surprising
sounds and the music made with it can be heard in
Reichel’s recordings and at his humorous Flash-animated web site: <daxo.de>.
6. The Oberheim Echoplex Digital Pro™ is now a
Gibson product and still considered a high-end,
multi-featured, real-time sample loop device.
7. Plasticene is a Chicago-based physical theater company founded in 1995 and recognized as one of the
city’s foremost experimental theater companies
<www.plasticene.com>.
8. As a teenager I learned rudimentary drumming
and gained my early performance experience in the
Vaqueros, a local drum and bugle corps.
Manuscript received 2 January 2007.
Eric Leonardson is active in Chicago’s experimental improvised music community and is
a composer and sound designer for Plasticene.
He was a founding member of ESS and currently teaches at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.