See related story: Making Music by Playing With Toys
Phoebe October's first bent circuit resulted in an instrument she calls the Robomber. Before being bent, the device was a voice-changing megaphone that turned a speaker's voice into one of three robot voices; now it's a robotic drum kit.
Reed Ghazala will be leading a how-to workshop at the Bent festival, and guarantees that everyone attending will leave the event able to create their own alien orchestra.
"I'm a dork and proud of it," says musician Phoebe October. She said she was drawn to circuit bending because it combines do-it-yourself punk attitude with "dorkiness."
Reed Ghazala, who has been dubbed the "father of circuit bending," says "circuit-bent instruments are alien instruments."
"We send probes into deep space for this kind of thing -- to listen to alien worlds," says Reed Ghazala, creator of this "bent" instrument. "But alien worlds aren't always that far away."
Reed Ghazala poses with an unbent raccoon friend.
Everyone should try their hand at circuit bending, according to Reed Ghazala, creator of this instrument. "In one evening's work, you can build an instrument that exists nowhere else on the planet," he says. "An instrument capable of creating sounds and music no one has ever heard before."
This unassuming drum toy was used as the basis for Phoebe October's Microhard drum kit.
Reed Ghazala created the Electronic Womb out of a sound synthesizer designed to soothe infants in their cribs. "It shall soothe no more," said Ghazala.
