Resoursonance

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In the foreground is someone playing an electric guitar. In the background someone is playing junk percussion with joy and gusto. The percussion looks to be plastic cups and aluminium cans.

In May/June 2019, I ran a workshop series and performance, called Resoursonance, with a repeat of the performance at the Wellington Jazz Festival in November 2020. Resoursonance sought to put resourceful music making ideas into practice. The workshops involved discussions about music-making’s environmental impacts, experimentation with crafting DIY instruments, and exploring sounds from various waste and natural materials. A key intention was to remove expectations about what musical instruments ‘should’ look and sound like, to open the possibility of using easily accessible repurposed materials, and thus minimise resource consumption and increase music-making’s accessibility.

The focus on accessibility meant that many of the instruments we created (or rather ‘discovered’) in the workshops were incredibly (and intentionally) simple. They were mostly unmodified, such as sonorous plastic containers, while others were slightly more engineered, like the hubcap tambourine (made from a discarded roadside hubcap, plus cat food can lids):

someone playing a hubcao adapted to be a tamborine

Liam playing a large cube shaped plastic container for liquids

DIY instruments can certainly be more complex. The workshops also featured the work and expertise of local musician and long-time DIY instrument maker, Mike Jamieson, and taonga pūoro practitioners and makers, Ruby Solly, Sam Palmer and Ricky Prebble. Here’s Mike with a range of his inventions, including a suitcase drum kit and multiple percussion instruments, a washtub bass, and various kazoo-modified wind and brass instruments -

Mike with a range of his inventions, including a suitcase drum kit and multiple percussion instruments, a washtub bass, and various kazoo-modified wind and brass instruments

The Resoursonance performances (‘An Upcycled Concert’) drew on the resourceful ideas and creations from the workshops. All the musicians performed on conventional instruments (except for Mike Jamieson who exclusively played tea chest bass and other DIY instruments), some of which were modified, e.g. prepared piano, and cello struck with various objects including a bamboo toothbrush -

a blurred action shot of someone fratically playing cello. The text would suggest it is with a bamboo totth brush, but the picture gives no clarity

an upright piano with the cover off for access to the strings and hammers. Some hands are playing the piano keys. there are various objects leaning on the mechnical structures, a can, some pices of wood, some lids...

Taonga pūoro were also featured in the performance – both intricately crafted taonga, played by skilled taonga pūoro musicians Ruby Solly, Sam Palmer and Nikau Te Huki, and ‘found’ taonga (unmodified natural and man-made items played using taonga pūoro techniques) played by all – e.g. small ‘kōauau’ and ‘kāranga manu’ made of the inner plastic tube of an eftpos paper roll, a hose nozzle, and a medicine bottle cap -

The musicians all used found objects and DIY instruments to some extent – many of which were unmodified or only slightly modified objects, and often made from literal waste items (e.g. Council rubbish bags, littered plastic bottles, containers and aluminium cans, rescued items from The Tip Shop). We explored the sonorous qualities of different objects and invited the audience to participate in this exploration. As a percussionist myself, most of these basic instruments were percussive, which is also the simplest type of instrument to create.

Ultimately, the Resoursonance concerts applied a resourceful approach not just to instruments and sounding objects, but also to other musical and extra-musical aspects – from composition, arrangement, and lyrics (i.e. rearranging or ‘repurposing’ existing songs to fit the kaupapa), to efforts to reduce venue-related waste (paper towels, kitchen food, packaging waste, tickets). The concerts attempted to demonstrate how resourcefulness is universally applicable as a creative practice and a real-world means of reducing environmental harms.

Resoursonance programme: link here

While my own attempts at making resourceful musical instruments may be unsophisticated, they demonstrate how easily this approach can be applied. But they also raise the basic question: is there any point, or does it make a difference? As an isolated, fringe approach to music making, probably ‘no’. However, we live in a world where the technical know-how and capabilities to create a sustainable society exist. We simply lack the broader social will to instigate the necessary changes in values, culture and behaviour. Resourcefulness is an approach to being and doing that everyone can apply in their daily work and life to help bring about those changes. I challenge musicians to take this to heart in our musical practice, and to remember that as creatives, we’re uniquely positioned to influence and shift modern culture in new directions.