strings and springs

[matthias@bahianet.com.br (Matthias Grob)]

>One of the sometimes collaborateurs, Ellen Fullman, designs and builds 
>these
>super-length string installation instruments, played by walking the
>80-foot plus
>strings with rosened fingers...as incredible to see as to hear, 
>beautifully
>sustained, loopish sonorities played in stately rituals.

In switzerland I was living with two crazy percussionist making such
instruments. Is it the trick of the combination of a spring with a string
you are talking about, too?
The amazing thing was, that the two guys started to build the instruments
independently, one calles them "wolf" and the other "whale", one started
with springs and finally added a string to activate it, while the other
started with strings and ended up using a spring to alter the sound, and
when they happened to live in the same comunity by accident they felt like
competitors! When we all had to move out, they moved to the same place, so
I hope this laboratory goes on...

The interaction and travel of waves between a string and a spring is
probably a very complex physical problem, the sounds that come out are
impossible to discribe. For amplification they used drum skins and strange
objects. Sometimes the strings went diagonally through the house and when
they had a gig, they went out early with stairs to install the things...

Matthias