Experimental Instruments Workshop

[Romi Zarchi]

Hi everyone,

I am looking to start an instruments and music experimentation workshop that would occur once or twice a month. This would include taking apart old audio equipment, building instruments (starting small) and jam sessions with live instruments and unique DAWs. I have experience only with the latter, and wanted to gauge interest and ideas from the group. I am relatively new and do not live too close, but would love to get this going. 

[Jasper Nance]

I would be so down with this! My interest is more with traditional non western instruments, but combining these with DAWs and finding ways to reproduce impossible to replace instruments is a no brainer. There is so much beauty to create.

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Jasper Nance - K7PHI
http://www.nebarnix.com/

On Sun, Oct 12, 2025, 7:07 PM Romi Zarchi <romiz...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi everyone,

I am looking to start an instruments and music experimentation workshop that would occur once or twice a month. This would include taking apart old audio equipment, building instruments (starting small) and jam sessions with live instruments and unique DAWs. I have experience only with the latter, and wanted to gauge interest and ideas from the group. I am relatively new and do not live too close, but would love to get this going. 

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[Rick Blake]

I'm not a musician, but I play with all sorts of gadgets. Count me in, I'll try to absorb something good!

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[Jay McGavren]

I don't know if Strudel is a good fit, because you program it rather than play it. But I do want to learn Strudel and this would be a fun context to do it in! https://strudel.cc/

[Romi Zarchi]

I'm glad to know there is interest! Let me elaborate on some of the initial ideas I've had and break down into parts:

First of all, I did not realize there was a JS framework for Tidal Cycles, so I am absolutely down for Strudel. Tidal Cycles is definitely something I wanted to bring to the sessions, because there is some awesome music to be created on there. 

For other software, I can help teach BespokeSynth, and to a lesser extent PlugData. These would be nice to play in tandem. HeatSync seems like great acoustics and ambience for a mini algo-rave. Bespoke is a great DAW for simulating non-linear, Analog music making and interfaces well with other tools (only thing is that it can be annoying with setting up VST control, but there are ways around that). I'm not sure how many mics are here, but I can also bring a few instruments for these nights to record, sample, loop and play around with. 

The flip side of this would be instrument creation and gadget tinkering. I was told that this type of event would take place in HeatSync a few years ago, and one night they played with an old tape recorder and made music from moving manually the tape through the recorder, as a sorta ersatz sampler. 

For instrument creation, the simplest way to start is with a cuica, a Brazilian friction drum that is surprisingly prominent in key pop songs throughout music history. It is very weird and the sound is unintuitive. This is one of a few very simple guide, as a proof of concept. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2rZaZVbD68 . We can experiment with the base diameter and height, see differences that emerge in the sound generation. 

The philosophy behind instrument building that I am drawn towards is found in the paper "LeMo: an assembly kit for musical acoustics education." The authors argue that instruments can be mostly classified by being broken down into 3 components: Generator, Resonator and Radiator, and that these parts can be constructed in a modular and interchangeable way to make way for new permutations of instruments. My aspiration was, over the span of a couple of months to work towards such an instrument creation. 

There are plenty of ideas here, and so we now can put some order to the chaos. I was thinking of meeting every 2 weeks, and either alternating between building/ tinkering and then jamming, or starting out with building and then branching out to jamming while some can continue tinkering in tandem. I do not see them as clashing, but from experience they often lead to a mutualistic form of chaos. 

I would like to hear more from other members, and also what are the practical considerations and limitations of organizing such an event?