Article from The Eccentric City newspaper
Mr Brian Duffy’s Modified Toy Orchestra
by Harry Palmer
Deep within the circuitry of all electronic gadgets is an ever expanding world waiting to be discovered. Similar to our ancestors who stepped into the oceans daring to venture into the unknown, the exploration of sound phenomena, of a new philosophical data-stream, is currently being pioneered by Mr Duffy and his modification of toys.
The inherent potential of new sounds expressed, in part, through binary codes in toys, is revealing unexpected results and new musical arrangements. Wires are rewired differently, soldered components readapted, items removed whilst new buttons are added for example. A form of digital and analogue surgery takes place, whereby new ingredients are electro-alchemised. Unpredictably, the resultant re-functioning of Casio keyboards, Speak & Spell machines alongside an extensive range of others, step beyond the pure delight of geek-sound, but crucially reorder the mathematical relationships concerning conditioned sound and music.
What you hear are original melodies which, whilst seemingly sounding familiar and pop-like, are nonetheless performed around the world to audiences as live concerts. Having recently toured to China, the toys-as-instruments are played by a small group of musicians…
Operating as collaboration between toy modification and human interaction, what is occurring is an ongoing attempt to remove the dreadful repetition and self obsessive tendencies of many music makers and certainly those with commercial interests. The ability to distant the personal self absorption in which a melody and story concerns the same old refashioned music with a slight twist (love / hate; me-ism*), with the Modified Toy Orchestra we discover a joyful sound that no longer concentrates on self gratification. Anonymity through machinery and rare human voice and vocalised lyrics, are instead inspired by a fusion between what the machine begins to offer via re-wiring etc…, and the philosophical questions that Mr Duffy continues to explore.
As Mr Duffy explained. ‘There is a chord for happy and there is a chord for sad…You as an audience are emotionally manipulated into feeling sad for example…But there isn’t a chord for ‘optimistically looking towards the future from a point of melancholia. So where’s that chord?’.
Through curiosity, what first started as a sampling exercise to incorporate new sounds into musical composition, has since evolved into the full orchestration of new sounds through toys, bastardising the convention of western European tradition that limits a way of expression, crippling musical potential. Toys, as Mr Duffy explained, are designed for a specific purpose for a specific sound. However, through the physically investigation via tampering with toy circuitry, a new world of unheard sounds have since emerged. The question, as Mr Duffy remarks, is to challenge the understanding of his personal role, as musician and artist. Toys have now become a philosophical question whereby they are taken seriously as instruments. What started as a hobby has become a significant part of Mr Duffy’s fundamental personal quest examining his role in life. Indeed this is a pioneering project. Toys now challenge the norm and the conditions in which we ‘see’ the world around us. Ultimately, in this audio interview, Mr Duffy insists that the crucial question is ‘what are human beings for? What is our purpose?’
*Me – ism. The condition in which a person is in a constant state of self obsession that continuously focused on themselves and their apparent needs. Often as a trivial need.
-By Harry Palmer. Report 30th April 2009.
Please note: Reproduction of the above article is allowed (full or part) so long as the author Harry Palmer and The Eccentric City are credited.
“I came across these bottles in the river in Seville, the day after a modified toy orchestra gig in 2007, the wind noise in the mic is a little of putting but the bottles were amazing to watch and listen to.” (via Two Bottles Seville - videoart on Vimeo)
Modified Toy Orchestra - New Sounds From Old Circuits (7”) at Discogs
Label: Static Caravan
Catalog#: VAN 35
Format: Vinyl, 7”
Country: UK
Released: 2002
Credits: Arranged By, Conductor - Brian Duffy
Artwork By - Montelimar
Notes: Comes with A5 b/w insert.
Tracklisting:
A1 Toy.Riff.i.c (1:58)
A2 Synthesizer Youth Day (1:58)
B Xylo (7:55)
The Modified Toy Orchestra are exactly as they’re described: A group that uses modified toys as musical instruments. Led by Brian Duffy, the British band taps the musical potential hidden in discarded toys, producing varying and novel electronic soundscapes.
The Orchestra’s motif is to use toys that have been discarded and to never pay more than one pound for it. The band boasts a repository of old toys including a 30-year-old Touch & Tell and a rare Hula Barbie. Before delving full-time into toys, Duffy worked as a sound artist producing music for bands and installations, and even created a device that converts starlight into music.
Prior to their Asian premiere in Hong Kong, the band was invited to host a series of workshops at the Polytechnic University to reveal the secrets behind toy modification.
He’s a recent recruit to the Modified Toy Orchestra and he has a blog.
To turn a toy into a musical instrument, Duffy opens the toy and locates the circuit board. While the toy makes a noise, he connects different parts of the circuit using wires. He searches all possible connections—and solders the wires together and connects them to a switch. Duffy says it is an advantage to have no prior knowledge of electronics to do this. The only rule is, “Don’t do it to toys that are plugged into the mains!” (via Modified Toy Orchestra - SWINDLE Magazine)
Duffy started modifying toys nearly 10 years ago while hunting for unusual sounds to sample. But nagging away were some heavier concerns. “What is music for? What meaning does music carry? What’s the role of the ego in it?” he says. “I realised most of the popular culture around me, particularly music, seemed to be obsessed with personal narrative, self-expression, self-catharsis, and social commentary. Surely there must be more to it; there must be more to be discussed than these songs that start with the word ‘I’. I never dreamed when I started modifying the toys that the answer I was looking for would be in them.” Inspired by experimental composer John Cage’s book For the Birds, and by the work of Buckminster Fuller, Duffy dug deeper, attracted by Fuller’s ideas of refining objects to a level of perfection, and of “finding the surplus value inside the seemingly redundant” - which is quite a philosophical way of looking at a Speak & Spell machine. But Duffy goes on: “There is only one amount of stuff in the universe, which just exchanges itself between matter and energy. Along the way, it rearranges itself into us. I started to wonder why - why does it rearrange itself into us?— Play that funky Barbie Doll | Music | The Guardian
Toys are not the easiest of workmates, however: “It takes ten months to prepare for a show,” says Duffy. “They are hard to play anyway, but sometimes a toy will just crash on stage and produce sounds you’ve never heard before. You have to keep reining them in like naughty children.” (via Close-up: Brian Duffy - Features, Music - The Independent)
