From discovery.com: New Instrument Joins Music, Hi-Tech.
A new kind of digital instrument replaces computer keyboard finger-tapping with a cello-like interface, bringing high-tech musicians out from behind their glowing screens.
The "String Thing" was designed by Interaction Design Institute Ivrea student Benjamin Dove. He hopes that light displays from its lasers, and the unusual sounds it produces, will give audiences richer experiences.
"It's something that makes sense from everyone's point of view," said Dove, who used to play the cello. [continue, see photo]
Related:
String Thing: "Fretless" Cello-like Music Controller -createdigitalmusic.com
String Thing -we-make-money-not-art.com
From an article in the Guardian:
Ever since Maggie Wisdom observed that unwanted 35mm film canisters could hold 17 £2 coins, the Guardian has published 69 letters suggesting uses for them. In tribute to (and in hope of finally killing off) this paper's longest-running thread of correspondence, we reprint a selection of the best. (...)
The uses people claim to have found for these cansiters are rather varied. Ironing board feet? A container for the oil of chrism? Um, ok, but this is the one that stands out:
My good friend and bagpipe-maker Francis Wood makes disposable Northumbrian pipes out of plastic straws, plastic bags and 35mm film canisters. They sound surprisingly good.
Paul Rhodes
Oxford
There really ought to be a web page about that project somewhere. Where are you, Francis, and where are the photos and instructions?
From the Guinness Bottle Organ page:
Odds are that at one time or another, you've experienced the pleasure of (or annoyance of others) blowing across the mouth of an open bottle, which produces a distinct sound. You may have also noticed that the pitch produces varies with how much of the bottle's contents have been consumed, and perhaps even made a little tune. But Peterson Tuners has taken it to the extreme.
The Peterson Bottle Organ is a MIDI-based instrument that uses jets of air passed over the tops of bottles - in this case mostly Guinness Extra Stout - to produce its sound (no word on how long it took to "prepare" the bottles). Each bottle in the organ corresponds to a single pitch, which was tuned by controlling the amount of liquid in the bottle with the aid of a Peterson strobe tuner no doubt. For the curious, mineral oil was used in the bottles as water would evaporate too quickly, throwing the organ out of tune. [continue]
The page includes a photo and sound files. How can you resist?
Burnt Earth asks:
What would happen if you crossed a drum with a horn? How about a fiddle and a flute? Here's your chance to see a number of unusual hybrid instruments that combine characteristics of different instrument families.
They've got globular horns, a flowerpotophone and a multiple didgeridu.
You might check out the stone fiddle, which is
...an original stoneware instrument that is a hybrid of three instruments from different musical families. It's a two-stringed bowed instrument, similar to the violin and the Egyptian rebabba. The neck of the fiddle is a flute (...) The goatskin soundboard or resonator of the fiddle can be played as a drum. As a player, it's interesting to explore how the three systems interact. For example, when playing the instrument as a flute or drum, the strings sympathetically vibrate and produce their own sound.
The site includes photos and sound files, and an instruments for sale section.
I've blogged about unusual musical instruments before (see links below) and the rather unusual Viennese Vegetable Orchestra. But as far as um, offbeat musical groups go, what's stranger than the Thai Elephant Orchestra? From a description of their CD from earthear.com:
This is, I believe, the first CD ever recorded of instrumental music featuring non-human players. It's a project of the Thai Elephant Conservation Center, a government facility in which domestic elephants are making the transition from forest workers to interspecies ambassadors. In keeping with the center's exploration of human-elephant interaction, a set of instruments were designed with the elephants' particular dexterity and strength in mind. The resulting music is uniquely fascinating. [continue]
Link found here at Metafilter.
Curious? Here are a bunch of related web pages:
Cellist and Elephants Make Heavy Music - Georgia Straight
Thai Elephant Orchestra - CBC Radio (Includes interview, recorded in Real Audio format.)
National Elephant Institute, Thailand
ChangThai.com
Thai Elephants on Parade -WNYC.org (Includes interview with sound samples, in Real Audio format.)
Jami Sieber's account of playing her cello with the elephant orchestra - JamiSieber.com
Thailand's musical elephants - BBC
Elephant articles from Mirabilis.ca
War elephants
Dungcams spy on elephants
Elephant polo
The Elephant's Child - Rudyard Kipling's short story
Elephants free antelope
Snorkeling elephants
Today's mind-boggling content comes from Engadget: the propane-powered flaming organ.
It’s a organ. And it plays music, alright. But it’s powered by burning propane. What, you think there’s something funny about that? Buddy, this is art. Actually, gas/heat powered organs (pyrophones) aren’t really anything new, but Eric Singer and the Madagascar Institute’s (a Brooklyn art combine, whatever that is) created a flame-belching, MIDI controlled, MAX/MSP software-enabled hunkahunka burning love (er, music) monster of a pyrophone. See the video now, before Ozzy (or maybe Mr. Quintron?) buys the thing and all the rights. Man, would those be some wicked solos.
Wow. After reading that, I had to go see if there are other pyrophone organs. Well, yes, there are. Take a look at this very large and amazing pyrophone.
The Organ Magazine's pyrophone page has some good background information:
This was an instrument invented by Frederic Kastner (a musician and scientist). It had a keyboard of three octaves and was played as an organ. It consisted of 37 glass tubes, in each of which was a circle of small gas jets or burners which could contract and extend "like the fingers of a hand". Sound is produced when they separate and ceases on contraction. [continue]
Also see The Flame Organ; The Burning Harmonica; the Chemical Harmonica; Kastner's Pyrophone from deadmedia.org. Who can resist a page with a title like that?
Related:
this page includes a photo of a pyrophone organ
How to make a violin. Wow. If I had a workshop and the proper tools, I'd give this a try.
Spotted here at Metafilter.
Good heavens, how did I miss this? From Wired: The Musical Stylings of High Tide.
The next time you want to relax to the soothing murmurs of pounding surf, you can do more than put on a meditative ocean rhythm CD. You can stroll down the seafront at Blackpool in Britain and listen to the ocean belting out the notes at high tide.
A marvel of modern architecture, the Blackpool High Tide Organ combines hydraulics, acoustics, structural engineering, musical composition and sculpture to create an unparalleled piece of artwork: a musical installation that will perform at high tide by harnessing the natural forces of the ocean, capturing and utilizing air pressure from the sea swell. [continue]
More on the high tide organ, and on Blackpool:
The sounds of sea on blackpool promenade
Blackpool to get wave-powered organ on prom - Ananova
Blackpool - Wikipedia
From the CBC: Pilot creates cockpit-friendly folding guitar.
A Swedish pilot and amateur musician has created a folding guitar that fits into his cramped cockpit.
Fredrik Johansson, a 41-year-old pilot with Scandinavian Airlines, wanted to redesign his favourite instrument to more easily go with him during his many travels.
Johansson's design combines a solid electric guitar body, similar in size and style to a Fender Telecaster, with a neck that folds back into the body. The strings are pulled onto a roller, similar to what's used in a roll-up window shade.
When folded, the guitar is just 50 centimetres long, or about half the size of a normal six-string guitar. [continue]
From CBC Arts News: Rare instrument highlight of Halifax concert.
More than 100 musicians will gather in Halifax Sunday to perform an infrequently played symphony, featuring a rare classical instrument mastered by a select few worldwide: the ondes martenot.
The orchestral work, Olivier Messiaen's Turangalila Symphonie, is seldom performed because, in addition to being complex and requiring a huge orchestra, it features the ondes martenot. Maurice Martenot, a French cellist and First World War wireless operator, invented the early electronic instrument in 1928. [continue]
Related:
Ondes Martenot - Wikipedia
Ondes but not forgotten - The Guardian
From Reuters: Playing with their food. [Update: sorry, the Reuters article is no longer available.]
HAMBURG, Germany (Reuters) - The sound of 40 kg (90 pounds) of finely tuned cucumbers, leeks, potatoes, radishes, peppers, aubergines and marrows entertained a German audience at a weekend concert by the Viennese Vegetable Orchestra.
The nine-piece orchestra plays a range of original compositions on instruments constructed from vegetables -- including a flute made from a carrot, a saxophone carved out of a cucumber and a pumpkin converted into a double bass. [continue]
Oh my. Here's das erste wiener gemüseorchester - the orchestra's home page. You can read the music with taste page, see photos of the instruments, and listen to .mp3 sound samples.
Don't you want to rush off and make a gurkophon or a karottenflöten?
Related:
The Vegetable Orchestra - BBC
The First Vienna Vegetable Orchestra - musicomh.com
Vegetable Orchestra - interview - succoacido.it
From The Scotsman: Music man's bid to restore harmony in Middle East.
A Scottish musicologist is bringing a little harmony to the Middle East by recreating an instrument that has not been heard since the days of the Old Testament.
John Kenny was part of a team of scientists and musicians who resurrected the Pictish instrument known as the carnyx, a 2,000-year-old metal trumpet in the shape of a boar's head which was used by ancient Scots in their battle against Roman invasion.
Using this experience, Kenny, a teacher at Glasgow’s Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, is now working with Israeli and Palestinian academics to recreate an ancient horn instrument described in the Old Testament.
Using traditional methods, Kenny joined forces with musicologist John Percer, metalworker John Creed and archeologist Fraser Hunter to reconstruct the carnyx in 1998 from the fragile remnants of an original instrument discovered in the Moray Firth in the 19th century. [continue]
Link found at Cronaca.
The Hardanger fiddle (in Norwegian, hardingfele) is often called the national instrument of Norway. It is similar to the violin and each one is a handmade work of art. A typical hardingfele is beautifully decorated with mother-of-pearl inlay and black pen-and-ink drawings, called rosing. It is topped with a carved head of a maiden (see photo below) or, more frequently, of an animal, usually a lion. Its most distinguishing feature is the four or five sympathetic strings that run underneath the fingerboard and add echoing overtones to the sound. The traditional playing style is heavily polyphonic. A melody voice is accompanied by a moving "drone" voice. Together, the instrument and the playing style create the sound for which the Hardanger fiddle is famous.
The instrument probably originated in the area around the Hardanger fjord of Norway — whence comes the English language name. The oldest known fiddle, the "Jaastad Fiddle," was made by Olav Jonsson Jaastad from Ullensvaang and may date from as early as 1651. By the mid-1700s the Hardanger fiddle had become the dominant folk instrument in much of the inland south-central and western coastal areas of Norway. It is one of the few European folk music traditions that has survived the assaults of cultural change and foreign musical influences to continue nearly unchanged up to the present day. [continue/see photos]
That's from the Hardanger Fiddle Association of America website. You'll find lots more information there, including sound samples in .mp3 format.
Regular readers might have guessed that I have a weakness for slightly strange "do it yourself" projects. (Like, say, that wooden serpent.) The only problem is that I don't have a workshop, so I lack the tools to make all these projects. But if I did have a workshop, oh boy, I'd be right on this one: Making Simple Flutes from PVC Plumbing Pipe.
Never mind that I have a perfectly lovely open-hole Gemeinhardt silver flute ... I'd still love to make a flute, or at least have a cheap one for camping trips. Maybe one day.
If you make one of these pvc flutes, could you please let me know how it turns out?
Odd Music is the sort of site that could keep a person busy for hours, or maybe days.
Oddmusic.com is for anyone interested in unique, unusual, ethnic, or experimental music and instruments. So whether you play stalagmites in a cave, the kaval, bow telegraph wires across the Nullarbor Plain, twist electrons by circuit bending, call whales on a Waterphone, or just love listening, this site is for you.
Showcasing the sounds, music, and instruments of artists and artisans from around the globe. From gourd music to electronic odysseys, harp guitars to industrial insect metal, from the beautiful to the bizarre.
The Odd Music Gallery includes links to musical instruments stranger than you could have imagined. Beer bottle organ, anyone? A double violin? Or how about the Pikasso, with its four necks, two sound holes, and 42 strings?
There's lots to explore, but it would be hard to beat the Stalacpipe Organ:
Located deep in the Luray Caverns in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley is the Great Stalacpipe Organ, the worlds largest musical instrument. Stalactites covering 3 1/2 acres of the surrounding caverns produce tones of symphonic quality when electronically tapped by rubber-tipped mallets. This most unique, one-of-a-kind instrument was invented in 1954 by Mr. LeIand W. Sprinkle of Springfield, Virginia, a mathematician and electronic scientist at the Pentagon. He began his monumental 3 year project by searching the vast chambers of the caverns selecting stalactites to precisely match a musical scale. Electronic mallets were wired throughout the caverns and connected to a large four-manual console. When a key is depressed, a tone occurs as the rubber-tipped plunger strikes the stalactite tuned to concert pitch.
The mind boggles.
If you liked the medieval and renaissance musical instruments. thing I posted last week, I think you'll enjoy The Serpent Website. The serpent is that large twisty instrument, and here's what it sounds like. (mp3)
Amazing, isn't it? The Serpent Website has the history of the serpent, serpent anecdotes & quotes, and some other stuff. You've gotta see the directions for building a serpent or ophicleide. Is there a squarpent, box-o-cleide, or contrabass squarpent in your future?
If you could play any one of these medieval and renaissance instruments, which one would you pick? The crumhorn? The organetto? The rackett? Or how about the outrageous serpent?
I think the rebec looks pretty cool.
Well, what kind of things have you made out of wood lately? Matthias Wandel made a pipe organ, and he put all the details on his website.
My first organ experiments were high in volume, if not in harmony. I proceeded to build two wooden pipes, and mounted these on top of a box with a vacuum cleaner motor inside.
He's got photos and diagrams, and even sound files.
