The Brillolin (as would Norwegian or German readers understand) is made of spectacle frames, with no glass lenses in them. They are put on the musician’s nose and fastened with a strap around his neck. Through them go two guitar strings to a tiny miniature violin with a built-in contact microphone. On the violin, there are protruding pieces of piano wire and two wooden tongues, all contributing to the noise-making range this instrument has, usually with a bow.

Listen to the Brillolin in Real Audio.

The Veloncell Marcel is a hommage-copy of Marcel Duchamp’s famous bicycle wheel ready-made from 1913. The spokes of the bicycle wheel on a kitchen stool (and anything on the fork) are amplified through a contact microphone on the hub and the sound of the dynamo’s electricity is also amplified (thus the first "electric" instrument that Bergmark has made).

Listen to the Veloncell Marcel in Real Audio.

The Wind Monstrosity or Blowfish is an assemblage of cheap toy wind instruments and electrical pipes to be used as an extension of the voice. It includes the whistling lid of a water boiler, slide whistles, a melodica, a kazoo, an echo "microphone" etc.

Listen to the Wind Monstrosity or Blowfish in Real Audio.

The Whalefish is Bergmark’s most used instrument for the time being. It is a sort of one-man-band with many functions, and very flexible. It can be played sitting (usually), standing or walking, because it is totally connected to the body: around the neck there’s a thong to which two piano strings attach to the soundboard. From the soundboard there are two wooden legs connected with a foot piece. The movements of the instruments are thus directly connected to the neck, foot and lap.

Apart from playing the strings, there are a number of objects to be played on the sound board (amplified with a contact microphone). From the top left, there are: telephone bells, 7 piano strings, an almond grinder, a toy music box, a fire alarm bell, a door bell, wooden rods, a spring, protruding pieces of piano wire, a butter ball maker, hacksaw blades, an older instrument called the Hedgehog with a wooden tongue and rods and an egg slicer.

On the rear side of the Whalefish there are an African mbira, another egg slicer and parts of a coffee grinder. On the picture you see again the bells, the contact microphone and the fastening of the wooden and metal rods’ arrangement as well as the strings. The resonator plate comes from an old piano.

To go with it, a great number of tools are used, usually put in a special order in a violin case. From the left you see: a cigarette lighter, coffee stirrers, nail files, playing cards, piano tuning pins, screws, miniature saw, table duster, rubber bands, steel brush, plastic forks, knives and spoons, cake cutters, shell, tooth brush, combs, onion holder, cone, holder for mock-flowers, back scratcher, piano hammers, (for saw playing), hoof scraper (?), ice strainer, barbecue sticks, food sticks, straw, saw blades, necklace, teat, toy guitar, toy horse, onion saw, feathers, nut grater, screwdriver and bows.

Listen to the Whalefish in Real Audio.

The Timbrature or Kaleidochord is a harpsichord keyboard of 61 keys with a soundboard added, in which each key triggers different sounds, some purely acoustic, others amplified with contact microphones, some perhaps more visual than timbral. It is meant to function as a playable exhibition object as well as a musical instrument, based on old ideas but with the Fylkingen exhibition the autumn of 1999 in Museet for Samtidskunst, Roskilde, Denmark as a point of departure. For the Danish exhibition, 33 keys were activated. For the following international sound exhibition "Rainbow Realm" in the spring of 2000 in the Liverpool Museum, many more became functional. For the coming exhibition in the spring of 2001 at Ringve Museum in Trondheim, Norway, it might be complete.

The Stringed Coffin. My friend Petra Mandal had a dream about an instrument which I then made: a box in body length with the musician (her in the dream, but me in the realization) inside. Some strings are strung over the lid. Through a little hole, the musician sings and the voice directs the tones of the strings. How to solve this technicality was a mistery for many years, until I took an idea from Brittish musician Lawrence Casserley as a guide. I led the voice, with a microphone, to my mixer and doubled it to 11 outputs (the limit for that mixer). Instead of using a PA, I connected small piezo buzzers to the outputs and let them rest loosely (because clamping them dampened the sound too much) on the strings to excite them by their buzzing. The sound of the voice then actually connects to the strings like the dream ordered! A nice side effect is the feedback between the internal microphone and the sound board (the lid).

Email: bergmark@flashback.net