Tyson Ayers is a musical inventor who is interested in the interrelationship between music and other artistic mediums. He majored in music composition, painting and writing at Whitman College. I had an opportunity to sit down with him the other day and talk to him about music and The Sound Cave, a unique musical instrument he built.
How did you get into music?
I started playing when I was 16 after I injured my shoulder. I picked up a guitar and got really into it. At the same time I was writing and painting, and when I was in college I decided to focus on the relationship between the three of them. I majored in music composition, painting and writing, and did a four-movement Interarts symphony as my thesis.
I kept pushing further and further; working with one of Harry Partch’s disciples, I started building musical instruments. I started using just-intonation and other non-conventional tuning systems, and began creating experimental instruments with them. Shortly after that experience I started building sound sculptures for people to interact and play with.
What kind of musical instruments and installations have you built?
I first made three musical bike paths—as you ride over them they create vibrations in your body. I manipulated those vibrations through mathematical proportions to play melodies. I Co-Directed The Living Pulse Project, in which I built an orchestra of instruments from natural materials and junk including sea kelp horns, didgeridoos, woodwinds, pitched percussion, and string instruments. I was also the main renovator of the Triclops Monstrosity, the Sousaplex and a couple others as a Co-Director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Fantastic Possibilities and the Elationist’s Centennial Celebration.
What is The Sound Cave?
The Sound Cave is a room-sized musical instrument—a little room built from piano parts—and when you crawl inside, you can play the walls and the ceiling. Any sound you play resonates through the 2,000 piano strings and echoes back. If you close your eyes, it feels like a 300-foot cave in every direction because of the echoes. Each of the nine boards is tuned to different scientific and mathematical principles, so it can be used as a musical instrument. It can also be used as an interactive art sculpture or a sound healing device, as well as a very unique performance stage.
You can get a feeling for The Sound Cave and its many different uses through this short video, though nothing is a substitute for the actual experience.
Sound Cave from Tyson Ayers on Vimeo.
What scale do you tune The Sound Cave to?
So now that I’ve built two Sound Caves, I have quite a few different tunings. I tune the ceiling to the natural overtone series with the fundamental tone tuned to an octave of the Schumann Resonance–the frequency the Earth emits when struck by lightning. I tuned another board to the Fibonacci series. Then I have a 33-note chromatic scale, so between C and C, instead of 12 notes, I have 33. Basically, it’s like I stuck two extra piano notes between every key. That one sounds crazy; I created it to cast the widest net for sympathetic resonance as possible. Most of the other boards are modes of the natural overtones series. I’m playing with the seven ancient Greek modes– the Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixo-Lydian, Aeolian, and Locrian. I also bring in a 7 note ancient African scale that the blues scale is based off of. I sometimes use notes from classical Indian music and Ayurvedic healing traditions, and also use some modes from the five elements system out of China, which relate to classical acupuncture techniques. So those are the main ones, and then I have two boards tuned to octaves of the orbits of the planets, or the music of the spheres.
So what’s next for The Sound Cave?
This summer I will be taking it on tour as The Sound Cave Roadshow. We will be installing The Sound Cave on the back of a 1967 Ford F600 flatbed truck so we can drive it to any event or town, and share it easily without needing to move nine pianos multiple times to do any event. Then we’ll be able to share it with a wider range of people as an interactive art piece, musical instrument, sound healing device and unique performance stage.
May 1st, we will be playing in San Francisco at Alchemy, and after that we will be performing at the DIY festival Maker Faire on May 21st, 22nd, 23rd. After that, we are going to try playing at Lightning in a Bottle, then hit the Northwest in July for Mutant Fest, Oregon Country Fair, and some others. Later that summer we will head across the northern part of the states, through Midwestern and Northeastern towns and some of Canada, before swinging through the South and Southwest during late September thru October.
You are cordially invited to come play with The Sound Cave over the next week and a half, before it goes on tour. It is living at Zambaleta, 2929 19th Street, San Francisco, CA 94110. (415) 341-1333 Come on by and visit us for a truly unique experience.
You can find out more about The Sound Cave by visiting Soundcave.org
If you would like to experience The Sound Cave, want more information about upcoming events, are interested in performing in The Sound Cave or in having it come to your town, contact Tyson @ info [@] soundcave [dot] org.