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The Triolin is an acoustic bowed metal instrument designed and built by Hal Rammel in 1991. He has described it as "a nail violin gone awry".[ citation needed ] Thin metal rods sit perpendicular in a circular arrangement on the top surface of a triangular wooden resonator and the instrument is held in the other hand by an ornately carved chair leg attached to the bottom of the resonator. Thus, the rods can be bowed as the entire instrument twists and spins underneath. Several years later, when he began to experiment with amplification inspired by the live electronics of cellist Russell Thorne and the amplified table top arrays of Hugh Davies, he attached wooden rods to a flat wooden artist's palette. His amplified palette can be heard on the 1994 CD Elsewheres (Penumbra Music) and, more recently, on "Like Water, Tightly Wound" (a Crouton Records 10"). In 2013 the triolin and four amplified palettes by Hal Rammel were added to the permanent collection of the National Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota along with many other acoustic instruments he performed with in the 1990s in Chicago.
Recordings of Rammel's music created with the triolin has been published by Penumbra Records, a Wisconsin-based label dedicated solely to experimental music. The instrument is featured in CDs with John Corbett, Van's Peppy Syncopators (his trio with John Corbett and Terri Kapsalis), and Steve Nelson-Raney. There are a total of thirteen compact discs from this label, some of which feature Hal Rammel. His CDs on other labels can be found through the site as well.
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An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickups to convert the vibration of its strings into electrical signals, which ultimately are reproduced as sound by loudspeakers. The sound is sometimes shaped or electronically altered to achieve different timbres or tonal qualities from that of an acoustic guitar via amplifier settings or knobs on the guitar. Often, this is done through the use of effects such as reverb, distortion and "overdrive"; the latter is considered to be a key element of electric blues guitar music and jazz, rock and heavy-metal guitar-playing. Designs also exist combining attributes of the electric and acoustic guitars: the semi-acoustic and acoustic-electric guitars.
The guitar is a stringed musical instrument, that is usually fretted and typically has six or twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A guitar pick may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant hollow chamber on the guitar, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier.
In musical instrument classification, string instruments or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner.
The daxophone, invented by Hans Reichel, is an electric wooden experimental musical instrument of the friction idiophones category.
An electric violin is a violin equipped with an electronic output of its sound. The term most properly refers to an instrument intentionally made to be electrified with built-in pickups, usually with a solid body. It can also refer to a violin fitted with an electric pickup of some type, although "amplified violin" or "electro-acoustic violin" are more accurate then.
A prepared guitar is a guitar that has had its timbre altered by placing various objects on or between the instrument's strings, including other extended techniques. This practice is sometimes called tabletop guitar, because many prepared guitarists do not hold the instrument in the usual manner, but instead place the guitar on a table to manipulate it.
The đàn bầu, also called độc huyền cầm is a Vietnamese stringed instrument, in the form of a monochord (one-string) zither.
The Stroh violin or Stroviol is a type of stringed musical instrument that is mechanically amplified by a metal resonator and horn attached to its body. The name Stroviol refers to a violin, but other instruments have been modified with the amplification device, including the viola, cello, double bass, ukulele, mandolin, and guitar. Johannes Matthias Augustus Stroh, an electrical engineer from Frankfurt, invented the instrument in London in 1899.
The electric upright bass (EUB) is an instrument that can perform the musical function of a double bass. It requires only a minimal or 'skeleton' body to produce sound because it uses a pickup and electronic amplifier and loudspeaker. Therefore, a large resonating structure is not required to project the sound into the air. This minimal body greatly reduces the bulk and weight of the instrument. EUBs must always be connected to an amplifier and speaker cabinet to produce an adequate audible sound. The EUB retains enough of the features of the double bass so that double bass players are able to perform on it.
The nail violin is a musical instrument which was invented by German violinist Johann Wilde in 1740. The instrument consists of a semicircular wooden soundboard, approximately 1.5 feet (46 cm) by 1 foot (30 cm) in size, with iron or brass nails of different lengths arranged to produce a chromatic scale when bowed.
The tro is Cambodia's traditional spike fiddle, a bowed string instrument that is held and played vertically. Spike fiddles have a handle that passes through the resonator, often forming a spike, on the bottom side where it emerges. The family is similar or distantly related to the Chinese erhu or huqin. The instruments have a soundbox at the bottom of the stick, covered with leather or snake skin. Strings run from pegs at the top of the stick and secured at the bottom, running across the soundbox. The larger the soundbox, the lower the pitch range. Instruments in this family include the two-stringed tro ou, tro sau thom, tro sau toch and tro che, as well as the three-stringed tro Khmer spike fiddle. The two-stringed tros are tuned in a fifth, while the three-stringed tro Khmer is tuned in fourths. The tros, with the exception of the tro Khmer, are strung so that the bowstring is permanently placed between the two stings. When the musician plays, the placement of the bow causes the strings to be played at once, one from below and one from above. In contrast, western fiddles are played with the bow pushing on each string from the outside, as is also the case with the tro khmer.
A resonator guitar or resophonic guitar is an acoustic guitar that produces sound by conducting string vibrations through the bridge to one or more spun metal cones (resonators), instead of to the guitar's sounding board (top). Resonator guitars were originally designed to be louder than regular acoustic guitars, which were overwhelmed by horns and percussion instruments in dance orchestras. They became prized for their distinctive tone, and found life with bluegrass music and the blues well after electric amplification solved the problem of inadequate volume.
The National String Instrument Corporation was an American guitar company first formed to manufacture banjos and then the original resonator guitars. National also produced resonator ukuleles and resonator mandolins. The company merged with Dobro to form the "National Dobro Company", then becoming a brand of Valco until it closed in 1968.
An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked, its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, resonating through the air in the body, and producing sound from the sound hole. While the original, general term for this stringed instrument is guitar, the retronym 'acoustic guitar' – often used to indicate the steel stringed model – distinguishes it from an electric guitar, which relies on electronic amplification. Typically, a guitar's body is a sound box, of which the top side serves as a sound board that enhances the vibration sounds of the strings. In standard tuning the guitar's six strings are tuned (low to high) E2 A2 D3 G3 B3 E4.
The bladder fiddle was a folk instrument used throughout Europe and in the Americas. The instrument was originally a simple large stringed fiddle made with a long stick, one or more thick gut strings, and a pig's-bladder resonator. It was bowed with either a notched stick or a horsehair bow.
An experimental musical instrument is a musical instrument that modifies or extends an existing instrument or class of instruments, or defines or creates a new class of instrument. Some are created through simple modifications, such as cracked cymbals or metal objects inserted between piano strings in a prepared piano. Some experimental instruments are created from household items like a homemade mute for brass instruments such as bathtub plugs. Other experimental instruments are created from electronic spare parts, or by mixing acoustic instruments with electric components.
The Rickenbacker Electro A-22, nicknamed the "Frying Pan" is the first electric lap steel guitar, also widely considered to be the first commercially successful electric guitar. Developed in 1931/1932, it received its patent in August 1937. A previous attempt, the Stromberg company‘s transducer-based "Stromberg Electro", was introduced in 1928. It used a "vibration-transfer rod" from the instrument's sounding board attached to magnets inside the guitar, and was not successful. George Beauchamp created the "Fry-Pan" in 1931, and it was subsequently manufactured by Electro String Instrument Corporation under the name Electro, later named Rickenbacker. The instrument gained its nickname because its circular body and long neck make it resemble a frying pan.
A resonator mandolin or "resophonic mandolin" is a mandolin whose sound is produced by one or more metal cones (resonators) instead of the customary wooden soundboard. These instruments are sometimes referred to as "Dobro mandolins," after pioneering instruments designed and produced by the Dopyera Brothers, which evolved into a brand name. The trademark "Dobro" is currently the property of the Gibson Guitar Corporation. When Gibson acquired the trademark in 1993, they announced that they would defend their right to its exclusive use.
Intonarumori are experimental musical instruments invented and built by the Italian futurist Luigi Russolo between roughly 1910 and 1930. There were 27 varieties of intonarumori built in total, with different names.
The segankuru is a bowed trough zither, bar zither or musical bow, a string instrument found in Botswana and other areas of South Africa, and found under many names. It consists of a wooden body attached to a tin can resonator, with a single metal string played with a bow. The instruments main role is for self or group entertainment for young men, while herding cattle, etc.