THE TRANSFORMATION FROM IDEA TO PROJECT

The first thought that I got into my head involved something I certainly wasn't ready to do.  I wanted to create some sort of sculpture that would make it's own noise.  My idea came from a combination of two things...my windchimes and the sculptures that the crazy aunt in Twister makes.  I thought I could make something like that.  (a little naive I think)  Then the sculptures would be made in such a way that they would create their own music. 

PROBLEMS:

I don't know how to sauder and I don't know anyone who could teach me how.  Where to get the equipment?  Time?  Effort?   A little too big of an undertaking I decided.  So...new project is necessary.

For a while I was drawing blanks.  I had no clue what I wanted to do.  Then I was watching Dead Poet's Society one night and I was paying attention to the scene where everyone walks in unison and Robin Williams talks about how people conform and synchronize themselves with the outside world and I thought that would be something to toy with for my final project.

So, and idea comes into my head.  I wanted to construct something where people could be influenced by beats around them.   I thought they could play drums and I wanted to make an instillation of some sort that would involve them playing and then hearing other beats and seeing whether or not that would effect the beats they listen to.  The most obvious would be to play the music aloud and ask someone to play and then just change the music and see whether or not they would change the pace they were drumming at.  However, I wanted to have multiple people to prove that it wasn't a fluke and I didn't want to audience to hear the music because I wanted them to pay more attention the beats that were being played, not heard.   I thought it would've been distracting.

See if you would be susceptible to my project here.

Ok, so after all of this I came up with my final idea.  It went thru a few incarnations but the sketch below shows how it ended up.  I used 3 switchboxes, 12 connecting wires, 3 cds, 3 pairs of headphones, 3 3-way splitters for headphones, 3 male to male headphone converters, 3 cd players and 3 people.   I think that's all.  It reads like a grocery list.

THE EXLPANATION:

Alright, here's some description of what you see above. Like the diagram shows I had three different people listening to 3 different cd's. The three songs that were playing had very different beats. One was slow, another medium tempo and the last one was fast. The participants each listened to different tracks. Before they began listening I asked them to pat their legs like they would drums. Then they began listening. As I had guessed, because they were all listening to different beats, they were all patting their legs at different beats. Then I switched one of the volunteers to the same song another one was listening to. The audience could see after a few seconds that now two of them were synchronized when they patted their legs. I waited until it was obvious that only the last participant, who was still listening to a different song, was patting their legs at a different beat. Then, I changed them to the same song as well. Again, within only a few seconds it was obvious that all of them were patting to the same beat. If I had told them to beat their legs to the music, that would've defeated the purpose because it wouldn't have illustrated my point. Which, by the way, was that, like they pointed out in Dead Poets' Society, people synchronize themselves with that which is around them. This could probably apply to more than beats.