The Feed-drum is an electroacoustic innovative instrument designed by Michelangelo Lupone for his multimedia work Feedback. It is quite a large drum, composed of a membrane with a vibrational map drawn on its surface, a steel resonator and a loud speaker.
The Feed drum is based on the principle of the “feedback” of the sound signal. It allows for the first time the musician to select and control the complex vibrational modes of the membrane, both in mono and stereophonic modes, by mean of particular techniques.
Sound, produced by the action of the musician by percussion, pressure or friction, selects on the surface of the membrane, one or more nodes (like a string instrument) which produces one or more pitches and timbres.
Differently from a string, which might be considered mono-dimensional, the membrane varies its vibrational modes in two dimensions, this means the use of a new technique of performing the instrument because the generated frequencies are not harmonics but follows a non linear behaviour.
An important feature of the feed drum is that the tones generated by the instrument can be varied in amplitude and also hold indefinitely by the musician, exceeding the limit of the short time duration of the sounds of all percussion instruments.
Feed drum has been produced by Istituto Gramma in collaboration with CRM - Centro Ricerche Musicali and Art Mama Factory and premiered at the occasion of Musica Scienza 2002 Forum, held in Rome from 3 to 9 of June at Goethe-Institut Rom.
Feed-Drum