Kelp Music

Ever wondered what kelp sounds like? 

This event will feature discussions and a performance on instruments made from bull kelp - from modest beginnings of kelp percussion experimentations, all the way through eight violin iterations!

Instrument makers Roger Bodley and Chris Henderson will share the many trials and tribulations of working with bull kelp, from collecting beach cast to moulding it into a violin. 

Emily Sheppard will play the instruments, showing the breadth of sound possibilities in kelp. 
 

Time and date: Saturday October 23rd, 5pm

Tickets: $30 General Admission / $25 Concession / $10 U18 / Ticket by donation or exchange.

Pre-booking essential. 

Venue: Burnie Coastal Art Group, 211 Mount St, Upper Burnie TAS 7320

Emily Sheppard is a violinist, violist, improviser and composer based in lutruwita/ Tasmania. Her creative practice explores the connections between science, nature, place and music. She was awarded a Tasmanian residency grant in 2017, spending four weeks in caves composing music. This resulted in an album of original music released in 2020, titled MoonMilk, which is touring throughout Tasmania in 2021. She was a composer and performer at Big hART’s event Kelp Pollen Rain (2020), for which she developed the a ‘kelp amplifier’. Creating a resonating chamber out of a dried bull kelp, she paired this with the Tonewood amplifier to ‘play’ the kelp from her viola. With her duo partner, Yyan Ng, she developed a hybrid violin/erhu made from Tasmanian eel-skin for MONA FOMA performances (Acoustic Life of Boat Sheds, 2021). Tasmania’s science festival, Beaker St, commissioned her to compose music inspired by the South Cape Bay Walk as part of their 2020 Sci Art Walks podcast.

Roger was challenged by Emily to make a violin from kelp after the BighART concert and the subsequent journey with the kelp from beach to finished instrument has been very rewarding both intellectually and artistically. Understanding the properties of kelp as it dries and shrinks has led to two distinct fabrication methods that will be discussed.

Chris was then challenged by seeing Rogers' violin to make his own using traditional techniques.  The problem of drying and shaping the kelp, then keeping it stable while adhering to the classical violin form took considerable time but the result, as you will hear, sounds pleasing.