Gage Averill playing an experimental hydraulophone pipe organ made from a piece of sewer drainage pipe and plumbing fittings in 2006
An experimental musical instrument (or custom-made 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.[citation needed] 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 instruments created by the earliest 20th-century builders of experimental musical instruments, such as Luigi Russolo (1885–1947), Harry Partch (1901–1974), and John Cage (1912–1992), were not well received by the public at the time of their invention. Even mid-20th century builders such as Ivor Darreg, Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry did not gain a great deal of popularity. However, by the 1980s and 1990s, experimental musical instruments gained a wider audience when they were used by bands such as Einstürzende Neubauten and Neptune.
Experimental musical instruments are made from a wide variety of materials, using a range of different sound-production techniques. Some of the simplest instruments are percussion instruments made from scrap metal, like those created by German band Einstürzende Neubauten. Some experimental hydraulophones have been made using sewer pipes and plumbing fittings.[1]
Since the late 1960s, many experimental musical instruments have incorporated electric or electronic components, such as Fifty Foot Hose 1967-era homemade synthesizers, Wolfgang Flür and Florian Schneider's playable electronic percussion pads, and Future Man's homemade drum machine made out of spare parts and his electronic SynthaxeDrumitar.
Some experimental musical instruments are created by luthiers, who are trained in the construction of string instruments. Some custom made string instruments are employed with three bridges,[2] instead of the usual two (counting the nut as a bridge). By adding a third bridge, one can create a number of unusual sounds reminiscent of chimes, bells or harps[3][4][5][6] A 'third bridge instrument' can be a "prepared guitar" modified with an object – for instance, a screwdriver – placed under the strings to act as a makeshift bridge, or it can be a custom made instrument.
One of the first guitarists who began building instruments with an extra bridge was Fred Frith. Guitarist and composer Glenn Branca has created similar instruments which he calls harmonic guitars or mallet guitars. Since the 1970s, German guitarist and luthierHans Reichel has created guitars with third-bridge-like qualities.
History
1900–1950s
Luigi Russolo and his intonarumori
Luigi Russolo (1885–1947) was an Italian Futurist painter and composer, and the author of the manifestoes The Art of Noises (1913) and Musica Futurista. Russolo invented and built instruments including intonarumori ("intoners" or "noise machines"), to create "noises" for performance. Although none of his original intonarumori survived World War II, replicas are being made.
The luthéal is a type of prepared piano created by George Cloetens in the late 1890s and used by Maurice Ravel in his Tzigane for luthéal and violin. The instrument can produce sounds like a guitar or a harmonica, with strange tick-tocking sounds. It had several tone-colour (not exclusively "pitch") registers that could be engaged by pulling stops above the keyboard. One of these registers had a cimbalom-like sound, which fitted well with the gypsy-esque idea of the composition.
Partch's chromelodion
Harry Partch (1901–1974) was an Americancomposer and instrument builder. He was one of the first twentieth-century composers to work extensively and systematically with microtonalscales, writing much of his music for custom-made instruments he built himself, tuned in 11-limitjust intonation. His adapted instruments include the adapted viola, three adapted guitars, and a 10-string fretless guitar. As well, he retuned the reeds of several reed organs and designed and built many instruments from raw materials, including the Diamond Marimba, Cloud Chamber Bowls, the Spoils of War, and a Gourd Tree.
John Cage (1912–1992) was an American composer who pioneered the fields of chance music, electronic music and unorthodox use of musical instruments. Cage's prepared piano pieces used a piano with its sound altered by placing various objects in the strings. He was the first to use phonograph records as musical instruments (in his 1939 composition Imaginary Landscape No.1). Cage also devised ways to perform using sounds which were nearly inaudible by incorporating photograph cartridges and contact microphones (his 1960 composition Cartridge Music). Ivor Darreg (1917–1994) was a leading proponent of and composer of microtonal or "xenharmonic" music. He also created a series of experimental musical instruments. In the 1940s, Darreg built an amplified cello, amplified clavichord and an electric keyboard drum.
1950s–1960s
Kraftwerk is known for their homemade synthesizers in the early 70s. In the 1960s, Michel Waisvisz and Geert Hamelberg developed the Kraakdoos (or Cracklebox), a custom made battery-powered noise-making electronic device. It is a small box with six metal contacts on top, which when pressed by fingers will generate a range of unusual sounds and tones. The human body becomes a part of the circuit and determines the range of sounds possible; different people will generate different sounds.
Jesse Fuller developed the Fotdella, a foot-operated string bass instrument, in the early 1950s. It was a large upright box with a rounded top, shaped like the top of a double bass, with a short neck on top. Six bass strings were attached to the neck and stretched over the body. Fuller would use this instrument as part of his one-man band performances.
Walter Smetak was a Swiss-Brazilian composer, cellist , sculpturer, and instrument inventor, who was highly influential in Brazil and other countries. Invited by Hans-Joachim Koellreutter he was appointed professor in Salvador, Universidade Federal da Bahia. He opened a workshop where he created musical instruments with vegetable gourds, pieces of wook, PVC pipes and plates, and other non conventional materials. Many of his instruments are more than useful sound tools, being sculptures influenced by his mystical approach to life and art. From 1957 to 1984, when he died, Smetak invented and built ca. 150 instruments, which he called generally as "plásticas sonoras".
1970s–1980s
Neola stringed musical instrument
The neola is a tenor stringed musical instrument invented in 1970 by Goronwy Bradley Davies, Llanbedr, Wales. Plastics and aluminium were used in the design and the invention was recognized in a British patent[7] and a Design Council award. The name "Neola" was registered for the instrument.[8] The invention is intended as a tenor, replacing an instrument in the viol family that has been surpassed by the more recent violin family. The strings are tuned to G2, D3, A3, and E4, an octave below the violin, and the instrument may be performed similar to a violoncello. ‘Cello players would need to adapt their technique to accommodate the shorter string and body length, and use of the thumb position would not be the same. The design specifications are well suited to industrial manufacture, retaining consistency in quality. This is not the case with traditional instruments since the choice of fine materials and the skills of the luthier are essential in producing instruments with superior sound qualities.
In the mid-1970s, Allan Gittler (1928–2003) made an experimental custom-made instrument called the Gittler guitar. The Gittler guitar has 6 strings, each string has its own pickup. The later versions have a plastic body. The steel frets give the instrument a sitar-like feel. Six individual pick ups can be routed to divided outputs.
Z'EV and Einstürzende Neubauten made several percussion instruments out of trash. No Wave artist Glenn Branca began building 3rd bridge zithers with an additional movable bridge positioned on the just intoned knotted positions of the harmonic series. Hans Reichel (born 1949) is a German improvisational guitarist, luthier, and inventor. Reichel has constructed and built several variations of guitars and basses, most of them featuring multiple fretboards and unique positioning of pickups as well as the same indirect playing technique as Branca's instruments. The resulting sounds exceed the range of conventional tuning and add effects from odd overtones to metallic tones. He later invented the daxophone which he is most famous for. It consists of a single wooden blade or "tongue" fixed in a block containing a contact microphone. Normally played by bowing the free end, it can also be struck or plucked. The location along the tongue where it is played will determine the frequency of its vibration, similarly to a wooden ruler held against the edge of a table. These vibrations continue to the wooden-block base, which in turn is amplified by the contact microphone(s). A wide range of voice-like timbres can be produced, depending on the shape of the tongue, the type of wood, where it is played, and where along its length it is stopped with a separate block of wood (fretted on one side) called the "dax."
American composer Ellen Fullman (born in 1957) developed a Long String instrument in the early 1980s, which is tuned in just intonation and played by walking along the length of the long strings and rubbing them with rosined hands and producing longitudinal vibrations.
Bradford Reed invented the pencilina, a custom-made string instrument in the 1980s. It is a double-neck 3rd bridge guitar that is similar in construction to two long, thin zithers connected by a stand. Wedged over and under the strings in each neck is an adjustable rod, a wooden drum stick for the guitar strings and a metal rod for the bass strings. In addition, there are four bells. The pencilina is played by striking its strings and bells with sticks. The strings may also be plucked or bowed.
Uakti (WAHK-chee) is a Brazilian instrumental musical group active in the 1980s known for using custom-made instruments built by the group. Marco Antônio constructed various instruments in his basement out of PVC pipe, wood, and metal.
Remo Saraceni made a number of Synthesizer type instruments with unusual interfaces, his most famous being The Walking piano made famous in the film Big.
In India, the new instrument based on harmonium style was developed by Pt. Manohar Chimote with the combination of keys and sympathetic strings to create the tone most suitable for solo playing. This was named as "Samvadini". It is based on just intonation tuning system and played in one key. It is exclusive solo instrument with great potentials. His follower Jitendra Gore now plays this solo instrument.
The bazantar is a five-string double bass with 29 sympathetic and 4 drone strings and has a melodic range of five octaves invented by musician Mark Deutsch, who worked on the design between 1993 and 1997.[9] It is designed as a separate housing for sympathetic strings (to deal with the increased string tension) mountable on a double bass or cello, modified to hold drone strings.
Ken Butler makes odd-shaped, guitar-like instruments made out of trash, rifles and other material. He also builds violins in eccentric shapes.
Cor Fuhler (1964) is a Dutch/Australian improvising musician, composer and instrument builder, known for his pioneering extended piano techniques. He created the keyolin in the 1990s. The keyolin is a 2-string violin played via a mechanical keyboard, which controls pitch, vibrato, glissandos and partials. A customised bow, played upside down, controls timbre and volume.
Iner Souster (born in 1971) is a builder of experimental musical instruments, visual artist, musician, fauxbot designer and film maker who lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Souster builds most of his instruments from trash, found, and salvaged materials. Some of his instruments are one-string string instruments, or thumb pianos. One of his more complicated instruments is the "Bowafridgeaphone" (bow a fridge a phone).
The Japanese multi-instrumentalist and experimental musical instrument builder Yuichi Onoue developed a two string hurdy-gurdy like a fretless violin, called the Kaisatsuko, as well as a deeply scalloped electric guitar for microtonal playing techniques.[10]
The Blue Man Group also experimented with home-made percussive instruments, made from PVC pipes and other materials. A specially-constructed studio was needed for the recording of their first album.
In the mid 1990s, Californian nu metal band Motograter invented the eponymous instrument in place of a bass guitar. The Motograter is made out of 2 large industrial springs mounted on a metal platform, producing unique chunky guitar and bass tones with a strong "RRRRRR" sound. The Motograter's sound is loosely comparable with a slow running cutting/drilling device.
Founded in 1998, The Vegetable Orchestra use instruments made entirely from fresh vegetables.
In the 2000s, Canadian luthierLinda Manzer created the Pikasso guitar, a 42-string guitar with three necks. It was popularized by jazz guitarist Pat Metheny, who used it on the song "Into the Dream" and on several albums. Its name is ostensibly derived from its likeness in appearance to the cubist works of Pablo Picasso.
In 2000, Felix Rohner and Sabina Schärer developed the hang in Bern, Switzerland.
In 2004, Brazilian acoustician and multi-instrumentalist Leonardo Fuks[11][12] (b. 1962) formed the musical group CELLPHONICA[13] using mobile phones as musical instruments. The exploration of mobiles as a portable instrument was a result of and academic project. It was the first documented professional ensemble to employ cell phones in such way: the players programmed music using the ringtone composing module built in the apparatus. The loudspeakers were placed close to the player's mouth, so that the sounds could be modulated by the vocal tract, generating a musically interesting quality, with several timbre, amplitude and tremolo effects. The instruments were presented in several TV shows and used in musical events. The mobile models used GSM technology , such as the Nokia 3310, and were discontinued in the following two years, for the newly developed smartphones by the same makers. The smartphones used MP3-coded music and sounds.
Bašić's sea organ, which creates sound from sea waves by using tubes built under the marble steps
In 2005, architect Nikola Bašić built a Sea organ in Zadar, Croatia, which is an experimental musical instrument which plays music by way of sea waves and tubes located underneath a set of large marble steps. Concealed under these steps is a system of polyethylene tubes and a resonating cavity that turns the site into a huge musical instrument, played by the wind and the sea. The waves create somewhat random but harmonic sounds.
Instigated by composer-researcher Georg Hajdu in 2006, Stephen Fox (clarinet maker) of Toronto, Canada, began building a new class of clarinets, called BP clarinets, able to play the Bohlen–Pierce scale of 146.3 cents per step.[14] To date two available sizes are played by a small but growing number of professional clarinettists in Canada, the US, Germany and Estonia, with two more sizes under consideration.
Starting in 2006, Ice Music Festival celebrates musical instruments made of ice.
In 2010, composer Alexis Kirke and technologist Tim Hodgson turned the University of Plymouth's Roland Levinsky Building into a form of musical instrument to be played by the rising sun, as part of Peninsula Arts Contemporary Music Festival. Light sensors were placed across seven floors of the building and fed by radio network into a computer music instrument analogous to a Mellotron. As the sun rose the "Sunlight Symphony" played in the reverberant space of the Roland Levinsky Building's open plan foyer.
For her 2011 album Biophilia, Icelandic artist Björk developed an instrument based on a Tesla Coil and a second instrument described as a cross between a Gamelan and a Celesta, dubbed the "Gameleste."
Logos Foundation, STEIM, Sonoscopia (Porto) and iii (The Hague) are organisations that focus on the development of new instruments. Besides producing instruments themselves, these organisations also run active artist-in-residence programs and invite artists for developing new art works, workshops, and presentations. Yearly the Guthman Instrument Competition takes place at Georgia Tech.
Experimental Musical Instruments (EMI) was a periodical published by Bart Hopkin, a leader in 20th-century experimental music design and construction. Though no longer in print, back issues are still available.
The double bass, also known simply as the bass, amongst other names, is the largest and, therefore, lowest-pitched chordophone in the modern symphony orchestra. Similar in structure to the cello, it has four, although occasionally five, strings.
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 and rock guitar playing. Designs also exist combining attributes of the electric and acoustic guitars: the semi-acoustic and acoustic-electric guitars.
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six 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 plectrum or individual finger picks may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant chamber on the instrument, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier.
A mandolin is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of eight strings. A variety of string types are used, with steel strings being the most common and usually the least expensive. The courses are typically tuned in an interval of perfect fifths, with the same tuning as a violin. Also, like the violin, it is the soprano member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello and mandobass.
The piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when pressed on the keys. Most modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys: 52 white keys for the notes of the C major scale and 36 shorter black keys raised above the white keys and set further back, for sharps and flats. This means that the piano can play 88 different pitches, spanning a range of a bit over seven octaves. The black keys are for the "accidentals", which are needed to play in all twelve keys.
String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner.
The fingerboard is an important component of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of material, usually wood, that is laminated to the front of the neck of an instrument. The strings run over the fingerboard, between the nut and bridge. To play the instrument, a musician presses strings down to the fingerboard to change the vibrating length, changing the pitch. This is called stopping the strings. Depending on the instrument and the style of music, the musician may pluck, strum or bow one or more strings with the hand that is not fretting the notes. On some instruments, notes can be sounded by the fretting hand alone, such as with hammer ons, an electric guitar technique.
The seven-string guitar adds one additional string to the more common six-string guitar, commonly used to extend the bass range or also to extend the treble range.
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.
An eight-string guitar is a guitar with eight strings, or one more than the Russian guitar's seven. Eight-string guitars are less common than six- and seven-string guitars, but they are used by a few classical, jazz, and metal guitarists. The eight-string guitar allows a wider tonal range, or non-standard tunings, or both.
Yuri Landman is a Dutch inventor of musical instruments and musician who has made several experimental electric string instruments for a number of artists including Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, Liars, Jad Fair of Half Japanese, Liam Finn, and Laura-Mary Carter. Besides his musical activities he is also a graphic novel artist.
Bradford Reed is an American multi-instrumentalist, experimental luthier, and member of the avant-garde band King Missile III. In the 1980s he invented the pencilina, a custom made string instrument.
Each bass guitar tuning assigns pitches to the strings of an electric bass. Because pitches are associated with notes, bass-guitar tunings assign open notes to open strings. There are several techniques for accurately tuning the strings of an electric bass. Bass method or lesson books or videos introduce one or more tuning techniques, such as:
The 3rd bridge is an extended playing technique used on the electric guitar and other string instruments that allows a musician to produce distinctive timbres and overtones that are unavailable on a conventional string instrument with two bridges. The timbre created with this technique is close to that of gamelan instruments like the bonang and similar Indonesian types of pitched gongs.
A third bridge can be devised by inserting a rigid preparation object between the strings and the body or neck of the instrument, effectively dividing the string into distinct vibrating segments.
A bridge is a device that supports the strings on a stringed musical instrument and transmits the vibration of those strings to another structural component of the instrument—typically a soundboard, such as the top of a guitar or violin—which transfers the sound to the surrounding air. Depending on the instrument, the bridge may be made of carved wood, metal or other materials. The bridge supports the strings and holds them over the body of the instrument under tension.
Einstürzende Neubauten is a German experimental music group, formed in West Berlin in 1980. The group is currently composed of founding members Blixa Bargeld and N.U. Unruh, long-time contributor Alexander Hacke, plus Jochen Arbeit, and Rudolph Moser, who both joined the line-up in 1997.
Experimental luthiers are luthiers who take part in alternative stringed instrument manufacturing or create original string instruments altogether.
Music technology is the study or the use of any device, mechanism, machine or tool by a musician or composer to make or perform music; to compose, notate, playback or record songs or pieces; or to analyze or edit music.
Electric music technology refers to musical instruments and recording devices that use electrical circuits, which are often combined with mechanical technologies. Examples of electric musical instruments include the electro-mechanical electric piano, the electric guitar, the electro-mechanical Hammond organ and the electric bass. All of these electric instruments do not produce a sound that is audible by the performer or audience in a performance setting unless they are connected to instrument amplifiers and loudspeaker cabinets, which made them sound loud enough for performers and the audience to hear. Amplifiers and loudspeakers are separate from the instrument in the case of the electric guitar, electric bass and some electric organs and most electric pianos. Some electric organs and electric pianos include the amplifier and speaker cabinet within the main housing for the instrument.
The GuitarViol is an interpretation of the Arpeggione built by guitarist/luthier Jonathan Eric Wilson. It has six strings, 24 frets, and is tuned E2–A2–D3–G3–B3–E4, though some models are tuned to B1–E2–A2–D3–F#3–B3. It is most often played in a semi-diagonal, guitar-like playing position and bowed with an underhand “German” bow grip manner similar to Viola da Gamba. GuitarViols exist in solid body electric, semi-acoustic, and acoustic configurations. Since the early 2000s, GuitarViols have been predominantly used by media composers in TV/Film/video game soundtrack industry. Notable examples of prominent GuitarViol use include movies such as 300 and all seasons of Game of Thrones. Wilson himself can be heard in Borderlands and his solo film library album “GuitarViol”.
↑ Müller, Nora-Louise, Konstantina Orlandatou, and Georg Hajdu. "Starting Over – Chances Afforded by a New Scale," pp. 127 and 171 in 1001 Mikrotöne / 1001 Microtones, edited by Sarvenaz Safari and Manfred Stahnke. Neumünster: von Bockel Verlag, 2015.
Cathy, van Eck. Between Air and Electricity. Microphones and Loudspeakers as Musical Instruments. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. ISBN978-1-5013-2760-5.
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