World's Largest String Instrument helps christen new Baker Center
By Susannah Elliott, Entertainment Editor
February 9, 2007 | 11 p.m.
Throughout the past couple days, passersby in Baker have stopped to stare and wonder about the long, thick strings that stretch from a stage on Baker’s second floor to a balcony on the fifth floor. One student commented that it looked like a cheese slicer for anyone who fell over the edge of an escalator rail.
Bill Close, artistic director for the Music, Architecture, Sound and Sculpture (MASS) ensemble group, held a short demonstration last night to explain the performances that will take the stage this weekend.
“The reason it’s called [the Earth Harp] is that the first time it was strung, the chamber was mounted to one side of a valley and the strings went 1,000 ft. across to the other side,” Close said of his original 1999 creation. “We were able to turn the earth itself into an instrument -- into a giant harp -- so the earth was the structure that allowed the instrument to sort of exist.”
Close, who studied sculpture, sound design and performance at the Art Institute of Chicago, explained that it was only natural, then, to bring the instrument into architecture. He pointed out that in Ohio University’s Baker Center, the escalators already create a feeling of diagonal lines. The strings of the Earth Harp stretch diagonally in the opposite direction of the escalators, creating what Close calls “upward motion.”
“The diagonal creates energy,” Close said. “We have all this upward energy one way, and the strings are sending visual and sound energy up the other way, so you have this crossing of energy in space.”
As the audience grew by the dozens, Close performed original compositions on the Earth Harp itself. A cello-like sound reverberated throughout Baker, attracting an even larger crowd. Close wore gloves to prevent the oils from his hands from reaching the strings and interfering with the efficiency of the rosin -- the same kind used on violins and other classical string instruments. He frequently shifted his position from the middle of the strings to the outside, reaching across to gracefully stroke and pluck them.
Tonight’s and tomorrow night’s music and dance performances will feature the entire ensemble as they use not only the Earth Harp, but the “aquatar,” the “drumbrella,” the “bungee drums” and the “wing harp.” The aquatar serves as a sort of super guitar, while the wing harp acts as a free-swinging, smaller harp with which a dancer will perform. The drumbrella and bungee drums consist of many hand drums arranged creatively to ensure that every performance will be a completely unique composition.
To help the audience imagine what it would be like to have more than one performer using the Earth Harp at once, Close invited two volunteers to play the harp with him. The result was not the most aesthetically pleasing music, but it didn’t fail to intrigue. Following the performance tomorrow night, all audience members will be allowed to try their hands at the Earth Harp.
MASS’ performances will be especially significant this weekend because of their inherent connection with architecture. Close even quoted Frank Lloyd Wright in his demonstration, saying, “Architecture is frozen music.”
The idea was that the patterns in the architecture were like patterns in music, Close said. “We’re actually inhabiting the space between the notes, and the building itself is the music – it’s making that connection between the world of music and the visual world,” he said.
Perhaps the events of the Grand Opening tomorrow will help ease students’ and community members’ dissatisfaction with the new Baker Center, and they will give it a second chance to prove its value to the campus.
After all, as Close said, “It’s a brand new space -- what better way to christen it than with a giant harp?”
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