Week 10/Special Projects: Linsey Pollak residency

This week we’ve had the privilege of learning from Linsey Pollak, a wind instrument maker. Linsey’s shows and workshops involve instruments that I’m sure Bunnings would be proud of, a bit of beatboxing and a looping machine. In brief sentences, here are some of the overarching ideas or concepts that seem to be the foundation to Linsey’s work:

• Wind instrument mechanics and sound physics can be easily demystified by demonstrating its simplicity and logic through home-made instruments (below: the beginner Foonki using straws that David has spiced up by lengthening)

Foonkis playing a Balinese gamelan kotekan pattern:

• Live looping performances allow the audience to see and hear the layers of a groove being made from small and simple additions

• Once the first track is laid down, the nature of having a loop allows almost any additional tracks to become groovy just because of repetition. This is excellent for nervous music makers/performers to embrace spontaneity.

On an honours-related note (aka self-efficacy of teachers), I think one of Linsey’s superpowers is his use of beatboxing. Up til now I’ve had the luxury of being friends with a pretty awesome and comprehensive beatboxer, but in self-efficacy terms this hasn’t particularly boosted my own self-efficacy in beatboxing because I’ve always known him as one, and I know his sound-development process basically involves walking around making noises, which is an extension of his extroverted personality that I don’t feel I have. On the other hand, Linsey is a much quieter character in conversation, and thus his use of fairly basic beatboxing sounds in extraordinary ways makes his success a strong vicarious experience for me and I suspect, for others in the workshop.