The Flying Monks are a set of battery-powered electronic instruments I designed in 2017 for choreographer Rika Lin (aka Yoshinojo Fujima), first performed in our collaboration Quantum Monk II at Links Hall. Simple oscillators, tethered on string or wire, are swung and spun through the air by the dancers — turning the room itself into part of the instrument. They come in a range of sizes, from small units about 5½ x 4 x 2¼ inches, to larger, disc-shaped ones I call the "pizza monks," about 12 inches across and 3 inches deep.
Each monk runs a simple CD4584 hex Schmitt-trigger IC as a tone generator — a resistor, a capacitor, and a 100k Ω potentiometer for pitch — feeding a small battery-powered Class D amplifier and speaker built into the housing, all running off AA or D-cell batteries.
The idea began when Rika Lin tied a shamisen string to my Springboard, and the visual shape of the resulting oscillating waveform suggested tethering oscillators and swinging them through space — an approach that echoes Gordon Monahan's Swinging Speakers. As a monk swings, Doppler shift and rising and falling combination tones occur naturally, shaped by the room's acoustics and by the motion itself.
The name refers to teru teru bōzu, talismans hung from the eaves of Japanese houses to ward off rain, recalled in a children's song about a monk who loses his head after failing to stop the rain.
- Designed in 2017 for choreographer Rika Lin, first performed in Quantum Monk II at Links Hall
- CD4584-based oscillator circuit with a potentiometer for pitch, driving a battery-powered Class D amp and speaker built into each housing
- Range from small units (~5.5 x 4 x 2.25 in) to larger disc-shaped "pizza monks" (~12 in diameter x 3 in deep)
- Played by swinging or spinning the instrument on a tether, by hand or by a dancer's body
- Produces Doppler shift and combination tones shaped by the room's acoustics and the swing itself
- New monks added in 2018 with bamboo rigging — the "Train" and the "Jib," built with Steve Ducklow
- Performed in Asobi: Playing within Time (MCA Stage, with Yoshinojo Fujima/Rika Lin) and discussed in Of Sound and Site, an artist talk with Anthony Janas at SAIC's Sullivan Galleries Faculty Exhibition, September 2018
