brianduffyhasabigbrain

Brian’s Speak and Spell performance at Symphony Hall for...

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 19:41:00 -0400

Brian’s Speak and Spell performance at Symphony Hall for Fierce Festival.

Brian performing at Symphony Hall for Fierce Festival

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 07:23:00 -0400

As part of the Curious Sounds in Curious Spaces event at Symphony Hall on April 7th, Brian will be performing his Speak & Spell piece, last seen at Friction’s The Edge in 2010 (video here).

Ross Cotton has an interview with him about it:

“There’s a lot of random aleatoric stuff in the toys that we don’t use in the Plastic Planet set, and I found it very interesting that the toys could demonstrate these hidden worlds of sound. These musical phrases that weren’t in the toys to start with.”

However, it seems that Brian’s performance won’t be as random as he has first suggested.
“That’s how this Speak & Spell piece started out”, he continues.

“It was unexpectedly producing random gibberish, but it turns out that the sounds are actually completely predictable! It’s the same repeatable sequence every time, it just sounds random.

“So it’ll be several Speak & Spells with a modification in them to make them spill the gibberish. You can get them to do that at the same time, and it’s like a little game that I play to get them to go in sync.”

@Graerose: #modifiedtoyorchestra back in rehearsal after a...

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 19:43:42 -0400

@Graerose: #modifiedtoyorchestra back in rehearsal after a 5-month gap. This time next week we’ll be circuit-bending dans La Suisse.

TEDxAldeburgh - Modified Toy Orchestra - Surplus Value. What...

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:32:12 -0500

TEDxAldeburgh - Modified Toy Orchestra - Surplus Value. What Makes an Audience Tick? (by TEDxTalks)

Brian and the MTO in the dressing room before TEDx (via via...

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 08:13:51 -0500

Brian and the MTO in the dressing room before TEDx (via via Graeme Rose’s Blog)

"We were then treated to Brian Duffy’s demonstration of how he has sonified the light from the stars..."

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 08:02:14 -0500

“We were then treated to Brian Duffy’s demonstration of how he has sonified the light from the stars by looking through telescopes at the night sky and then translating the frequencies of the light into sound frequencies. My favourite part of this was hearing him talk about the ‘pulsar’ – a rotating neutron star – discovered by Jocelyn Bell – (I am very taken by the story of her discovery which was recently featured on a BBC documentary). Anyway – if the rotation speed of the pulsar is fast enough, it can generate a pitch – so Brian asked a scientist to find pulsars with various pitches to work in a piece of music…”

- Kathy Hinde reports on TEDx Aldeburgh

The Modified Toy Orchestra perform at @tedxaldeburgh (by...

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 07:59:42 -0500

The Modified Toy Orchestra perform at @tedxaldeburgh (by matthewlinley)

Mini-MTO at Sound Kitchen

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 18:15:04 -0400

News reaches us that there’s a (rare?) chance to see an extended Casio Duo set from the Modified Toy Orchestra on the 6th of October at Kings Heath’s fashionable Hare and Hounds where they’ll be supporting Coppe’, “the legendary godmother of Japanese Electronica”.

The whole gig should be unmissable. More info on the Sound Kitchen blog and tickets are a mere £4.00.

If you’re wondering what the Casio Duo set is, here’s an example from last year.

MTO circuit bending workshops in Bristol

Sat, 06 Aug 2011 12:40:18 -0400

MTO circuit bending workshops in Bristol:

A 6 day course for £40 in the week before the big gig. Exciting!

MTO Bristol gig, 27th Oct

Sat, 06 Aug 2011 12:39:12 -0400

MTO Bristol gig, 27th Oct:

Plastic Planet at the Colston Hall.

Modified Toy Orchestra - Pocket Calculator (Kraftwerk cover) (by...

Sun, 31 Jul 2011 06:55:55 -0400

Modified Toy Orchestra - Pocket Calculator (Kraftwerk cover) (by lernrning)

Modified Toy Orchestra play “Black Star” Live in...

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 13:59:12 -0400

Modified Toy Orchestra play “Black Star” Live in Hong Kong (by DazzDang)

There’s a MTO Facebook page, should you be down with the...

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 10:05:00 -0400

There’s a MTO Facebook page, should you be down with the liking.

Scan of the Brian Duffy interview in this month’s RADAR...

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 09:38:00 -0400

Scan of the Brian Duffy interview in this month’s RADAR magazine.

MTO setting up at 6 Music (from the Mark Riley Facebook album)

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 07:47:16 -0400

MTO setting up at 6 Music (from the Mark Riley Facebook album)

The MTO meet Mark Riley at 6 Music (via Graeme Rose’s Blog)

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 07:39:39 -0400

The MTO meet Mark Riley at 6 Music (via Graeme Rose’s Blog)

A montage of clips of the Modified Toy Orchestra at Ikon...

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 11:40:36 -0400

A montage of clips of the Modified Toy Orchestra at Ikon Eastside. (by @hellocatfood)

The whole set from last night’s Modified Toy Orchestra...

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 09:26:45 -0400

The whole set from last night’s Modified Toy Orchestra performance at Ikon Eastside.

"Described by Mute magazine as a “national treasure” Brian is the artist leader of the..."

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 21:21:26 -0400

“Described by Mute magazine as a “national treasure” Brian is the artist leader of the acclaimed MODIFIED TOY ORCHESTRA and member of the Sinclair Spectrum Orchestra. Brian is a NESTA Fellow and impossibly clever. He first worked for Stan composing the soundtracks for two of the company’s youth theatre shows, No Walls, Just Doors and Adult Child/Dead Child before moving onto the radio piece So Bring Me Down and the coundtrack to Good and True. Brian did an exceptional job as musical director for Lurid and Insane. Most recently he worked alongside composer Giles Perrin on the music and sound design for SONIC JOURNEY”

- Brian’s bio on the Stan’s Cafe Theatre Company - Associate artists and other collaborators list.

The World of R. Buckmister Fuller, a 1974 film by Robert Snyder...

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 08:32:50 -0500

The World of R. Buckmister Fuller, a 1974 film by Robert Snyder on UBUweb.

Buckminster Fuller was an architect, engineer, geometrician, philosopher, futurist, inventor of the famous geodesic dome, and one of the most brilliant thinkers of his time. His legacy becomes ever more relevant, providing us a road map to steer our planet away from oblivion and toward a sustainable future for all humanity. This film by Oscar-winning filmmaker Robert Snyder, like his other documentaries on “the greats” (Michelangelo, Henry Miller, Willem de Kooning, Pablo Casals, among others), transports the viewer into Fuller’s mind and soul. Told entirely in his own words, the film is an intimate, personal and inspiring message from Fuller to our fragile world. 85 min