skip la plante started making his own instruments in 1974. he was living on a run down farm with an ever changing cast of roommates. as their possessions arrived and departed, he became aware of their residue-items nobody wanted such as the 80 tea saucers in the kitchen cabinet. he could break 50 or 60 and nobody would care. the farms detritus became the raw materials for dozens of instruments. working as a dance accompanist, he began to explore the instruments he was building in classes, and in compositions for choreography. with carole weber, another accompanist, he created music for homemade instruments in 1975, partially as a place to recycle dance scores they liked too much too to retire after the dances they were created for were retired. MFHI has evolved into a composer's collective with 4-10 members interested in the readical possibilities of non-standard instruments. after a few years he began to write for theater... good for the rest of the paragraph in 1989-90 he lived in java studying music and gamelan building, discovering the logic of bent/stressed metal instruments. on returning he began working with Bash The Trash, using homemade instruments to explore the physics of sound with students of all ages. La Plante lives on NYC's Bowery in a large loft housing his 200-300 instruments, still creating new ones to explore the musical edge: non-western musical systems, alternative tuning systems, and whatever else seems like fun after all these years.
