Circuit Bending, Hardware Hacking, and Drunken Roommate Interviews

Several years ago when I lived in Austin, Texas, I went through the laborious process of trying to find a replacement roommate. This is a great way to meet people who you would never want to live with. My favourite was a slightly older woman who arrived 30 minutes late, dressed in a skimpy nightclub outfit at 5pm in the afternoon, and claiming to be ‘on her way to work’.

At the time I was using the vacant room to store about 100 electronic toys. When I showed her the room (which she barely managed to reach due to having to climb a flight of stairs in drunken heels), her only question was ‘who’s got the kid’. When I explained that the toys were for an experimental music project, she just smiled staring at me sideways and said, ‘Awlrightdarlin’ – who’s got the kid?”



Well, of course, they were for an experimental music project that I had been planning for about a year with circuit bent instruments. I wanted to make a whole orchestra of modified toys, even though at the time I didn’t really know how to circuit bend yet. I had tried, of course, and not so much failed, but let’s just say that the toys rarely survived beyond an hour or two.

In case you’re not familiar with circuit bending, it’s simply the process of modifying an electronic device, usually a toy, to create a new musical instrument. I had first read about it in an article in Odd Music or maybe Experimental Musical Instruments Journal about Reed Ghazala and his ‘Anti-Theory’manifesto. Ghazala is considered the ‘Father of Circuit Bending’ although there were precedents before him, particularly in the avant-garde, such as David Tudor and others.



Whichever article it was, it described how to take apart an electronic toy and look for points in the circuitry to rewire in order to create a new, experimental electronic instrument. But even with the help of the article, I didn’t have the electronic chops to actually rewire a toy and make it reusable after the initial experiment. The most that I could manage was to secure an output jack with black tape from the toy’s guts to a minidisc recorder, and then crunch steel wool against its circuit board until it ‘freaked out’ and record the results before it literally went up in smoke.



It certainly worked, but I wouldn’t describe it as sustainable. Eventually I learned how to solder, drill, connect pots, switches, LEDs, sensors, and the rest, and began building instruments that I still use in my work today. An early example of this is documented on the STEIM website from my residency there. STEIM is a centre for research for live electronics based in Amsterdam and although I had been ‘bending’ for while before then, I reached a point where I wanted to consolidate my work and build one meta-instrument. After receiving a grant from the Scottish Arts Council and some correspondence with STEIM, they supported the process during a three week residency. If you’re an artist who is into hardware, coding, or live electronics, I would definitely encourage making contact with them.

Soon after my residency, I began delivering workshops and talks on circuit bending to adults and young people of all ages, and have continued to do so on a regular basis throughout the UK. Most recently I completed a summer long project with Aldeburgh Music as part of their Exchanging World Programme where I worked with young people from a Pupil Referral Unit to make interactive sound sculptures. Around the same time I completed a year long programme for Music4U’s Connections Project in which I worked with young people to build their own instruments and then compose and improvise a piece for a year-end performance.



Of course I didn’t learn how to do this in a vacuum and there are many resources on the web as well as a few helpful books. The first that I would recommend is Nicolas Collins’ Hardware Hacking – an absolute must-have. I’ve met and spoken with the author a few times and can’t say enough good things about the guy, the term generous isn’t generous enough to describe him. And if you can find it, Reed Ghazalla’s Circuit-Bending: Build Your Own Alien Instruments is also excellent and very clear. (Hint, you can find pdfs of both these books on line if you look…if you have trouble, email me).



Books and websites aside, sometimes it helps to have someone actually show you how to do these things, or how to select the best toys, tools and what have you. And if you’re working with young people, it’s always good to have someone experienced with both circuit bending and teaching. In which case, I’d be happy to bring a workshop or private lesson your way. Feel free to contact me via the contact page if you’re interested or even if you just have a question and need some help.



Oh, and as to the roommate scenario, I didn’t call the nice drunk lady back and ended up moving to the UK and selling all the unbent toys before I left to sound artist and painter Josh Russel, who I’m sure put them to good use.