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From Mud to Music
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Manufacturer: American Ceramic Society
List Price: $59.95
Our Price: $42.91
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This book is about a truly remarkable transformation: how the simplest of materials clay or mud can be used to make tools for producing one of the most complex human expressions music.
With a history reaching back to ancient times, creating ceramic musical instruments is a vibrant pursuit for many innovative artists today. From Mud to Music explores the vast array of ceramic musical instruments, from their historical traditions in world cultures to modern variations and innovations.
All instrument families are represented: percussion, winds, strings, and even unique hybrids. For each type of instrument, special construction techniques specific to clay are explained. In addition, there's a chapter providing detailed, step-by-step instructions showing how to build several ceramic instruments. A companion audio CD contains 43 diverse tracks of ceramic instrumental music ranging from the refined melodic strains of Vivaldi and Tchaikovsky to the earthy, primal wailings of bizarre pre-Columbian wind instruments.
Hundreds of color photos present the work of artists from around the world spanning the last 3000 years, from ancient Peruvian water whistles and Mesopotamian rattles to contemporary seven-chambered ocarinas and ceramic bagpipes. In-depth profiles explore a number of today's artists, their work, and their inspirations. Whether you are a musician, ceramist, or just a fan of art and music, you are invited to embark on an incredible journey...from mud to music!
From Mud to Music includes a CD of music performed on clay instruments featured in the book. So you not only get the opportunity to see the variety of shapes of these clay instruments, you get to hear them in action.
Cellular Activation - Rafael Bejarano
Performed on a huaca and ehecatl built by Rafael Berjarano.
Clay Shaker and Claypans - N. Scott Robinson
Performed on a clay shaker and Claypans built by Stephen Wright.
Neolithic Fanfare - Barry Hall
Performed on ceramic horns built by Barry Hall.
Nutcracker Suite - Geert Jacobs
Performed on a ceramic barrel organ built by Geert Jacobs.
Earth - Joe O'Donnell
Performed on a clay violin built by John Stevens.
Gravity Chime - Ward Hartenstein
Performed on the Gravity Chime built by Ward Hartenstein
The Purest Expression of the Human Spirit
Some potters find their voice in the clay; sometimes the clay gives voice to the music within. Very often, we cannot fully control what comes to life on the wheel. Many times, the clay will tell us what it should be, how it should form. We are partners in the process, not the masters. We must incorporate our vision of what the clay can become with what it wants to be. We hear its music, and when we're lucky, we can bring that music to life in form, shape, and sound.
The primal voice of ancient civilizations lies within its musical instruments. All we need do to unlock a link to the past is draw breath, draw back a bow, raise a mallet or a hand and the sounds of the past come rushing across the great span of history, spilling into our consciousness. It is truly a remarkable experience to hear the sound of ancient instruments that last sounded thousands of years ago. The people may be gone, the civilization shattered for whatever reason. But we can travel back in time, hear the sounds they heard, by listening to (or even playing!) musical instruments of their time.
Few of us will ever have the honor of playing an authentic instrument from an ancient culture. But we can explore our connection to cultures of ancient ages, hear the music of their time played on instruments of our own making instruments made from the very same material: clay.
PRODUCT DESCRIPTIONS:
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 738.8
EAN: 9781574981391
ISBN: 1574981390
Label: American Ceramic Society
Manufacturer: American Ceramic Society
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 259
Publication Date: 2006-01-01
Publisher: American Ceramic Society
Studio: American Ceramic Society
SIMILAR ITEMS:
• Simple Flutes: A Guide to Flute Making and Playing, or How to Make and Play Great Homemade Musical Instruments for Children and All Ages from Bamboo, Wood, Clay, Metal, PVC Plastic, or Anything Else
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CUSTOMER REVIEWS:
Easily a Favorite Resource for Creating Ceramic Musical Instruments -
If there wasn't a single word printed in Mud to Music, I would still recommend the images and the accompanying CD as an inspirational work for anyone interested in ceramic musical instruments. I had been making small ceramic whistles and ocarinas for about a year before my wife and son gave me Barry Hall's book for my birthday. Even after reading the book from cover to cover, I return regularly to discover subtleties in design, form, and technical approaches of the numerous instrument types.
Barry Hall introduces the reader to the work of numerous ceramic instrument artists with decades of experience in the field. Each of these introductions reveal different perspectives, personalities, and passions for incredibly creative works.
The 'How-To' section of the book covers enough details that someone with a reasonable amount of experience in the ceramic process can successfully run with the concepts. Resource links in the book will save you time in locating supplies that one doesn't generally associate with ceramics but may be necessary for percussion instruments projects (i.e. animal hides). Historical references scattered through the book provide a great starting point for research into the history of ceramic musical instruments, particularly in Meso-America.
I give this book the highest rating available and do not hesitate to recommend it to other clay artists.
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Let's play the clay, okay? -
This book is truly amazing! It's also pretty comprehensive, covering a range of instruments. Just about any instrument can be made using clay, though there are some limiting factors, such as the material's rigidity once fired. The book also covers a history of various instruments, as well as including instructions on how to make a number of them. I especially enjoyed listening to the accompanying CD.
Best Book Ever -
I got this book as a present from my wife, we are both potters. I am more excited than ever about making musical instruments. We already make ocarinas, udus, and didgeridoos. This book opens up a whole new world of instruments to us! Recommended to anyone interested in music. It comes with a CD! You can experience sounds from pre-columbian to experimental, sounds from around the world and traversing time. Also a great reference book for ceramic art.
Beautiful Coffee Table Book - 
If you're looking for an art piece, this is the book for you. I was hoping for a little more instruction. It is a beautiful book and I would probably buy it anyway even if I had known how little practical knowledge is actually offered. Most of the instruments could probably be figured out by a fairly competent ceramist, but a beginner would be completely lost.
I was disappointed not to be given cross-section diagrams of some of the wind instruments; I would have liked some more and more specific technical info on creating a clay xylophone and/or marimba; I'd like to know more about stretching drum heads and stringing/playing the bowed instruments and harps. That said, I can probably figure it out, but that's why I bought this book. To help me figure it out.
Conversely, in the section in which Hall does give step by step procedures, he includes simple steps that even the 6-year-olds in my pottery classes know how to do. Nothing about firing techniques or the rest of the stuff ceramists seem to feel obligated to include in a book written for beginners, though, for which I am grateful. Any beginning potter needs a general instruction text (or a good class), so I'm not sure why specialty authors feel it necessary to include basic steps and then, for want of space, leave out stuff you'd really like to know.
Sorry for whining so much. I really love the book and have been reading it word for word (some of it is pretty silly kind of psycho-babble, so you've been warned) to glean every bit of info. It's spangled with little stars of knowledge and I don't want to miss any of them.
As others have said, this isn't really a studio book. It's too nice, and hasn't got all that much practical information anyway, unless you've never made an ocarina or can't figure out on your own how to make a goblet drum. (Thanks for the instructions on fitting the head, though.) It will give you loads of inspiration, and if you understand the different ways of making a sound, which are really explained quite adequately, you'll be able to figure out at least a rudimentary model of most of the instruments shown.
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Excellent Resource -
I'm facinated by ceramic music and this book had instruments that I didn't know existed. It is well written and very informative. I also enjoyed listening to the music CD. If you're into ceramics, this book is a good buy!
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