Sound Sculpture Installations

For his recent ‘Kitchen Gamelan’ installation at Cockington Court, Torquay, The Junkman looked to the kitchen gallery setting for inspiration. Creating a veritable ‘audible feast’ out of bottles, kitchen utensils, pots, pans, and dining room furniture, he invited visitors to grab a stick and make their own music.

Cockington Court Devon, UK Sculpture Trail

For the sculpture trail, The Junkman created ‘Journey’ a sound sculpture constructed from road signs and auto parts.

Interactive Assembly Concert

Typically lasting 45 minutes to one hour, the concert features music selections that offer a very diverse array of styles, tempi and instrumentation. The concert begins with Mishmash Music which mixes together the four major families of recycled materials: wood, metal, plastic and glass. Then Wood Music, followed by Body Music using only the human body and voice, Rock Music with real rocks, Kitchen Music on kitchen utensils, an amazing percussion solo on the entire junk rack, Zen Samba which gets everyone moving and Beat the Can with its amazing virtuosity. The concert ends with an interactive Junkjam™  wherein the audience, using provided junk and sticks, gets to play along with The Junkman™ and his holistic environmental chants and messages.

Playstations

The Junkman™ and museum-goers work together to construct a sound sculpture made exclusively from recycled materials in which up to 20 museum visitors can perform upon simultaneously. The sculpture, known as a Junk Music™ Playstation, is a permanent museum installation. The Junkman™works in advance with the museum contact to gather all the recycled materials prior to the beginning of the sculpture building residency.

A Playstation residency opens with a short introduction concert for the museum and residency closes with a public performance in which participants jam together on the new sculpture.

Here’s a sample of previous Junkmusic Playstations:

Workshops

Workshops typically begin with a shorter version of the Interactive Assembly Concert and then move directly into classes (ideally 25 students or less in each class). Workshops generally range from one to four days dependent upon the size of the student body.

The Junkman’s main music goal is to instill in each student that everyone loves music because we all have the beat in our bodies (our heart). That is what draws us to music, makes us want to dance, tap our feet and listen forever. A successful workshop means that each and every child leaves the room with that knowledge, also knowing they performed as musicians in that class. This will hopefully manifest the desire in each student to remain an active participant in making music. All the aspects of being a good team player are also discussed: awareness of others and their actions, follow the leader, listening, focus and proper performance manners.

On the holistic environmental side, we take up with the eco-chants they learned in the concert and we further discuss and develop eco-chants for all the main topics: inclusiveness, water, energy, littering, less is more, change, footprint, respect, diversity, reuse, and the state of the earth.

Make-and-Takes

A chance for children and parents to work with The Junkman™ to create an actual percussion instrument made solely from reused and recycled materials and then take it home.
These instruments range from wind chimes made from wood or metal, a rain stick made from a plastic tube, clappers from wood, a wood and metal jingle stick, to a musical walking stick, as well as other options. The instruments vary in difficulty of assembly; The Junkman™ will make decisions as to what instruments will be available for construction based upon the age range of the attendees and whether or not those children attending will be accompanied by an adult.
These classes are generally 45 minutes to one hour in duration. Once again, the age range of attendees will determine the length of the Make-and-Take session.