Custom-made instrument - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

An experimental musical instrument (or custom-made instrument) is a musical instrument

Musical instrument

A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...

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 drum cymbals or metal objects inserted between piano strings in a prepared piano

Prepared piano

A prepared piano is a piano that has had its sound altered by placing objects between or on the strings or on the hammers or dampers....

. Some experimental instruments are created from household items like a homemade mute

Mute (music)

A mute is a device fitted to a musical instrument to alter the sound produced: by affecting the timbre, reducing the volume, or most commonly both.- Musical directions for muting :...

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 builders of experimental musical instruments, such as Luigi Russolo

Luigi Russolo

Luigi Russolo was an Italian Futurist painter and composer, and the author of the manifesto The Art of Noises . He is often regarded as one of the first noise music experimental composers with his performances of "noise concerts" in 1913-14 and then again after World War I, notably in Paris in 1921...

(1885–1947),
Harry Partch

Harry Partch

Harry Partch was an American composer and instrument creator. He was one of the first twentieth-century composers to work extensively and systematically with microtonal scales, writing much of his music for custom-made instruments that he built himself, tuned in 11-limit just intonation.-Early...

(1901–1974), and John Cage

John Cage

John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...

(1912–1992), were not well received by the public at the time of their invention. Even mid-20th century builders such as Ivor Darreg

Ivor Darreg

Ivor Darreg was a leading proponent of and composer of microtonal or "xenharmonic" music. He also created a series of experimental musical instruments.Darreg, a contemporary of Harry Partch and a close colleague of John H...

, Pierre Schaeffer

Pierre Schaeffer

Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer was a French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer, musicologist and acoustician of the 20th century. His innovative work in both the sciences —particularly communications and acoustics— and the various arts of music, literature and radio presentation after the end...

and Pierre Henry

Pierre Henry

Pierre Henry is a French composer, considered a pioneer of the musique concrète genre of electronic music.-Biography:...

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

Einstürzende Neubauten

Einstürzende Neubauten is a German post-industrial band, originally from West Berlin, formed in 1980. The group currently comprises Blixa Bargeld , Alexander Hacke , N.U...

and Neptune

Neptune (band)

Neptune is a noise music band from Boston, noted for having built their custom-made guitars and basses out of scrap metal. The band also plays custom-made percussion instruments and electric lamellophones.-Band history:...

Types

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

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

band Einstürzende Neubauten

Einstürzende Neubauten

Einstürzende Neubauten is a German post-industrial band, originally from West Berlin, formed in 1980. The group currently comprises Blixa Bargeld , Alexander Hacke , N.U...

. Some experimental hydraulophone

Hydraulophone

A hydraulophone is a tonal acoustic musical instrument played by direct physical contact with water where sound is generated or affected hydraulically. Typically sound is produced by the same hydraulic fluid in contact with the player's fingers...

s have been made using sewer pipes, plumbing fittings.

Since the late 1960s, many experimental musical instruments have incorporated electric or electronic components, such as Fifty Foot Hose

Fifty Foot Hose

Fifty Foot Hose is a psychedelic rock band that formed in San Francisco in the late 1960s, and reformed in the 1990s. They were one of the first bands to fuse rock and experimental music...

1967-era homemade synthesizers, Wolfgang Flür

Wolfgang Flür

Wolfgang Flür is a German musician, best known as a member of the electronic group Kraftwerk, from 1973 to 1987, playing electronic percussion...

and Florian Schneider

Florian Schneider

Florian Schneider-Esleben is one of the founding members of electronic music band Kraftwerk. He left the band in November 2008.-Career:...

's playable electronic percussion pads, and Future Man

Future Man

Roy Wilfred Wooten , also known as "RoyEl", best known by his stage name Future Man , is an inventor, musician, and composer...

's homemade drum machine made out of spare parts and his electronic Synthaxe

SynthAxe

The SynthAxe is a fretted, guitar-like MIDI controller, created by Bill Aitken, Mike Dixon, and Tony Sedivy and manufactured in England in the middle to late 1980s. It is a musical instrument that uses electronic synthesizers to produce sound and is controlled through the use of an arm resembling...

Drumitar.

Some experimental musical instruments are created by luthiers, who are trained in the construction of string instruments. Some custom made string instrument

String instrument

A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...

s are employed with three bridge

Bridge (instrument)

A bridge is a device for supporting the strings on a stringed instrument and transmitting the vibration of those strings to some other structural component of the instrument in order to transfer the sound to the surrounding air.- Explanation :...

s, 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 chime

Chime

-Musical instrument or tone:* Chime , an array of large bells, typically housed in a tower and played from a keyboard.** An instrument of this kind with 23 bells or more is known as a carillon...

s, bell

Bell (instrument)

A bell is a simple sound-making device. The bell is a percussion instrument and an idiophone. Its form is usually a hollow, cup-shaped object, which resonates upon being struck...

s or harp

Harp

The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...

s A 'third bridge instrument' can be a "prepared guitar

Prepared guitar

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...

" 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

Fred Frith

Fred Frith is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer and improvisor.Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. Frith was also a member of Art Bears, Massacre and Skeleton Crew...

. Guitarist and composer Glenn Branca

Glenn Branca

Glenn Branca is an American avant-garde composer and guitarist known for his use of volume, alternative guitar tunings, repetition, droning, and the harmonic series. In 2008 he was awarded an unrestricted grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.-Beginnings: 1960s and early 1970s:Branca...

has created similar instruments which he calls harmonic guitars or mallet guitars. Since the 1970s, German guitarist and luthier

Luthier

A luthier is someone who makes or repairs lutes and other string instruments. In the United States, the term is used interchangeably with a term for the specialty of each maker, such as violinmaker, guitar maker, lute maker, etc...

Hans Reichel

Hans Reichel was a German improvisational guitarist, experimental luthier, inventor, and type designer.-Career:...

has created guitars with third-bridge-like qualities.

1900–1950s

Luigi Russolo

(1885–1947) was an Italian Futurist

Futurism (art)

Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane and the industrial city...

painter and composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, and the author of the manifestoes The Art of Noises
The Art of Noises
The Art of Noises is a Futurist manifesto, written by Luigi Russolo in a 1913 letter to friend and Futurist composer Francesco Balilla Pratella...

(1913) and Musica Futurista.
Russolo invented and built instrument

Custom-made instrument

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 drum cymbals or metal objects inserted between piano...

s including intonarumori ("intoners" or "noise machines"), to create "noises" for performance. Unfortunately, none of his original intonarumori survived World War II.

Léon Theremin

Léon Theremin

Léon Theremin was a Russian and Soviet inventor. He is most famous for his invention of the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments. He is also the inventor of interlace, a technique of improving the picture quality of a video signal, widely used in video and television technology...

was a Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n inventor, most famous for his invention of the theremin

Theremin

The theremin , originally known as the aetherphone/etherophone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox is an early electronic musical instrument controlled without discernible physical contact from the player. It is named after its Russian inventor, Professor Léon Theremin, who patented the device...

around 1919-1920, one of the first electronic musical instrument

Electronic musical instrument

An electronic musical instrument is a musical instrument that produces its sounds using electronics. Such an instrument sounds by outputting an electrical audio signal that ultimately drives a loudspeaker....

s. The Ondes Martenot

Ondes Martenot

The ondes Martenot , also known as the ondium Martenot, Martenot and ondes musicales, is an early electronic musical instrument invented in 1928 by Maurice Martenot. The original design was similar in sound to the theremin...

is another early example of an electronic musical instrument.

The luthéal

Luthéal

The luthéal is a kind of prepared piano which extended the "register" possibilities of a piano by producing cimbalon-like sounds in some registers, exploiting harmonics of the strings when pulling other register-stops, and also some registers making other objects, which were lowered just above the...

is a type of prepared piano created by George Cloetens in the late 1890s and used by Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel

Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

on his Tzigane composition for luthéal and violin. The instrument can produce sounds like a guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

or a harmonica

Harmonica

The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...

, with strange tick-tocking sounds. It had several tone-colour (not exclusively "pitch") register

In music, a register is the relative "height" or range of a note, set of pitches or pitch classes, melody, part, instrument or group of instruments...

s 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.

Harry Partch

(1901–1974) was an America

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

n composer

Composer

and instrument builder. He was one of the first twentieth-century composers to work extensively and systematically with microtonal scales, writing much of his music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

for custom-made instruments he built himself, tuned in 11-limit

Limit (music)

In music theory, limit or harmonic limit is a way of characterizing the harmony found in a piece or genre of music, or the harmonies that can be made using a particular scale. The term was introduced by Harry Partch, who used it to give an upper bound on the complexity of harmony; hence the name...

just intonation

Just intonation

In music, just intonation is any musical tuning in which the frequencies of notes are related by ratios of small whole numbers. Any interval tuned in this way is called a just interval. The two notes in any just interval are members of the same harmonic series...

.
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 organ

Reed organ

A reed organ, also called a parlor organ, pump organ, cabinet organ, cottage organ, is an organ that generates its sounds using free metal reeds...

s 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

Composer

who pioneered the fields of chance music

Aleatoric music

Aleatoric music is music in which some element of the composition is left to chance, and/or some primary element of a composed work's realization is left to the determination of its performer...

, electronic music

Electronic music

Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...

and unorthodox use of musical instruments

Extended technique

Extended techniques are performance techniques used in music to describe unconventional, unorthodox, or non-traditional techniques of singing, or of playing musical instruments to obtain unusual sounds or instrumental timbres....

. Cage's prepared piano pieces used a piano with its sound altered by placing various objects in the strings). Ivor Darreg

Ivor Darreg

(1917–1994) was a leading proponent of and composer

Composer

of microtonal

Microtonal music

Microtonal music is music using microtones—intervals of less than an equally spaced semitone. Microtonal music can also refer to music which uses intervals not found in the Western system of 12 equal intervals to the octave.-Terminology:...

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

Throughout the 1960s the canadian musician Bruce Haack

Bruce Haack

Bruce Clinton Haack was a musician, composer, and pioneer of electronic music. He was born in Alberta, Canada.-From Alberta to New York :...

created many electronic experimental musical instruments, including the famous Dermatron, which was played by touching people's faces. His influence is still recognized by many artist (For instance The Beastie Boys

Beastie Boys

Beastie Boys are an American hip hop trio from New York City. The group consists of Mike D who plays the drums, MCA who plays the bass, and Ad-Rock who plays the guitar....

). Kraftwerk

Kraftwerk

Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...

is known for their self built synthesizers in the early 70s.

In the 1960s, Michel Waisvisz

Michel Waisvisz

Michel Waisvisz was a Dutch composer, performer and inventor of experimental electronic musical instruments...

and Geert Hamelberg developed the Kraakdoos

Kraakdoos

The Kraakdoos is 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 all manner of unusual sounds and tones...

(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.

1970s-1980s

In the mid-1970s, Allan Gittler (1928–2003) made an experimental custom-made instrument

Custom-made instrument

called the Gittler guitar

Gittler guitar

A Gittler Guitar is an experimental designed guitar created by Allan Gittler . Gittler felt that sentimental design references to acoustic guitars are unnecessary in an electronically amplified guitar, and designed his instrument with the objective of reducing the electric guitar to the most...

. The Gittler guitar has 6 strings, each string has its own pickup

Pickup (music technology)

A pickup device is a transducer that captures mechanical vibrations, usually from suitably equipped stringed instruments such as the electric guitar, electric bass guitar, Chapman Stick, or electric violin, and converts them to an electrical signal that is amplified, recorded, or broadcast.-...

. 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

Z'EV

Z'EV is an American poet, percussionist, and sound artist. After studying various world music traditions at CalArts, he began creating his own percussion sounds out of industrial materials for a variety of record labels...

and Einstürzende Neubauten

Einstürzende Neubauten

Einstürzende Neubauten is a German post-industrial band, originally from West Berlin, formed in 1980. The group currently comprises Blixa Bargeld , Alexander Hacke , N.U...

made several percussion instruments out of trash. No Wave

No Wave

No Wave was a short-lived but influential underground music, film, performance art, video, and contemporary art scene that had its beginnings during the mid-1970s in New York City. The term No Wave is in part satirical word play rejecting the commercial elements of the then-popular New Wave genre...

artist Glenn Branca

Glenn Branca

began building 3rd bridge

3rd Bridge

The 3rd bridge is an extended playing technique used on some string instruments , that allows a musician to produce distinctive timbres and overtones that are unavailable on a conventional string instrument with two bridges...

zithers with an additional movable bridge positioned on the just intoned

Just intonation

knotted positions of the harmonic series

Harmonic series (music)

Pitched musical instruments are often based on an approximate harmonic oscillator such as a string or a column of air, which oscillates at numerous frequencies simultaneously. At these resonant frequencies, waves travel in both directions along the string or air column, reinforcing and canceling...

. Hans Reichel

Hans Reichel

Hans Reichel was a German improvisational guitarist, experimental luthier, inventor, and type designer.-Career:...

(Born 1949) is a German improvisational

Free improvisation

Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician involved. The term can refer to both a technique and as a recognizable genre in its own right....

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

Pickup (music technology)

as well as the same indirect playing technique as Branca's instruments. The resulting sounds exceed the range of conventional tuning

Musical tuning

In music, there are two common meanings for tuning:* Tuning practice, the act of tuning an instrument or voice.* Tuning systems, the various systems of pitches used to tune an instrument, and their theoretical bases.-Tuning practice:...

and add interesting effects, from odd overtones to metallic noises. Later he invented his Daxophone, where he's most famous for. His Daxophone

Daxophone

The daxophone, invented by Hans Reichel, is an experimental musical instrument of the friction idiophones category. It consists of a thin wooden blade fixed in a wooden block , which holds one or more contact microphones...

consists of a single wooden blade fixed in a block containing a contact microphone. Normally, it is played by bowing the free end, but it can also be struck or plucked, which propagates sound in the same way a ruler halfway off a table does. These vibrations then continue to the wooden-block bass, which in turn is amplified by the contact microphone(s) therein. A wide range of voice-like timbre

Timbre

In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...

s can be produced, depending on the shape of the instrument, the type of wood, where it is bowed, and where along its length it is stopped with a separate block of wood (fret

Fret

A fret is a raised portion on the neck of a stringed instrument, that extends generally across the full width of the neck. On most modern western instruments, frets are metal strips inserted into the fingerboard...

ted on one side) called the "dax."

American composer Ellen Fullman

Ellen Fullman

Ellen Fullman is a composer, instrument builder, and performer. She was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area...

(born in 1957) developed the long string instrument

Long string instrument

The long string instrument is an instrument where the string is of such a length that the fundamental transverse wave is below what we can hear as a tone . If the tension and the length result in sounds with such a frequency the tone becomes a beating frequency ranging from a short reverb to...

in the early 1980s, which is tuned in just intonation

Just intonation

and played by walking along the length the long strings and rubbing them with rosin

Rosin

.Rosin, also called colophony or Greek pitch , is a solid form of resin obtained from pines and some other plants, mostly conifers, produced by heating fresh liquid resin to vaporize the volatile liquid terpene components. It is semi-transparent and varies in color from yellow to black...

ed hands and producing longitudinal vibrations.

Bradford Reed

Bradford Reed

Bradford Reed is an American multi-instrumentalist, experimental luthier, and member of avant-garde band King Missile III. He is proficient at such instruments as drums, guitar, melodica, piano, and synthesizer. In the 1980s he invented the pencilina, a custom-made string instrument.-Pencilina:The...

invented the pencilina, a custom-made string instrument

Custom-made instrument

in the 1980s. It is a double-neck 3rd bridge guitar

3rd Bridge

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 bell

Bell (instrument)

A bell is a simple sound-making device. The bell is a percussion instrument and an idiophone. Its form is usually a hollow, cup-shaped object, which resonates upon being struck...

s. The pencilina is played by striking its strings and bells with sticks. The strings may also be plucked

Pizzicato

Pizzicato is a playing technique that involves plucking the strings of a string instrument. The exact technique varies somewhat depending on the type of stringed instrument....

or bowed

Bow (music)

In music, a bow is moved across some part of a musical instrument, causing vibration which the instrument emits as sound. The vast majority of bows are used with string instruments, although some bows are used with musical saws and other bowed idiophones....

.

Uakti

Uakti

Uakti can mean several things:*Uakti is a mythical musician described by the Tukano Indians of South America.*Uakti is a Brazilian percussion quartet...

(WAHK-chee) is a Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

ian 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

Polyvinyl chloride

Polyvinyl chloride, commonly abbreviated PVC, is a thermoplastic polymer. It is a vinyl polymer constructed of repeating vinyl groups having one hydrogen replaced by chloride. Polyvinyl chloride is the third most widely produced plastic, after polyethylene and polypropylene. PVC is widely used in...

pipe, wood, and metal.

Remo Saraceni made a number of Synthesizer type instruments with unusual interfaces, his most famous being The Walking piano

Big piano

Big Piano is a musical instrument, invented in 1976 by Philadelphia, Pennsylvania kinetic artist and inventor Remo Saraceni, merging dance, music, and play...

made famous in the film Big

Big

Big is a 1988 romantic comedy film directed by Penny Marshall and stars Tom Hanks as Josh Baskin, a young boy who makes a wish "to be big" to a magical fortune-telling machine and is then aged to adulthood overnight...

.

In the 1980s, the folgerphone

Folgerphone

The folgerphone is a wind instrument , classifiable as a woodwind rather than brass instrument despite being made of metal, because it has a reed . It is a modern experimental instrument, using an alto sax mouthpiece, with copper tubing and a coffee can...

was developed. It is a wind instrument (or aerophone

Aerophone

An aerophone is any musical instrument which produces sound primarily by causing a body of air to vibrate, without the use of strings or membranes, and without the vibration of the instrument itself adding considerably to the sound...

), classifiable as a woodwind

Woodwind instrument

A woodwind instrument is a musical instrument which produces sound when the player blows air against a sharp edge or through a reed, causing the air within its resonator to vibrate...

rather than brass instrument

Brass instrument

A brass instrument is a musical instrument whose sound is produced by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips...

despite being made of metal, because it has a reed (cf. saxophone

Saxophone

The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

). It is made from an alto sax

Alto saxophone

The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in 1841. It is smaller than the tenor but larger than the soprano, and is the type most used in classical compositions...

mouthpiece, with copper tubing and a coffee can. Although it uses sax parts, it is a cylindrical bore instrument, and thus part of the clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

family.

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 playing the instrument 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.

1990s and 2000s

The bazantar

Bazantar

The bazantar is a custom made string instrument invented by musician Mark Deutsch, who worked on the design between 1993 and 1997 .The bazantar is a five string double bass with 29 sympathetic and 4 drone strings and has a melodic range of five octaves...

is a five-string double bass

Double bass

The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...

with 29 sympathetic and 4 drone strings and has a melodic range of five octave

Octave

In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...

s invented by musician Mark Deutsch, who worked on the design between 1993 and 1997 ( issued March 16, 1999). It is designed as a separate housing for sympathetic strings (to deal with the increased string tension) mountable on a double bass or cello

Cello

The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

, modified to hold drone strings.

Ken Butler

Ken Butler

Kenneth Lee "Ken" Butler is an artist and musician, as well as an experimental musical instrument builder. His Hybrid musical instruments and other artworks explore the interaction and transformation of common and uncommon objects, altered images, sounds and silence...

makes odd shaped guitar like instruments made out of trash, rifle

Rifle

A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...

s and other material. He also builds violins in eccentric shapes.

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 instrument

String instrument

s or thumb piano

Thumb piano

The thumb piano is an African musical instrument, a type of plucked idiophone common throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.-Description:Each note of a kalimba, mbira, etc. is a separate idiophone, and in orchestral terms, the instrument as a whole belongs in the bar percussion family...

s.
One of his more complicated instruments is the "Bowafridgeaphone" (bow a fridge a phone). Leila Bela

Leila Bela

Leila Bela is an Iranian-born American avant-garde musician, writer, photographer, actress, multi-instrumentalist, playwright and record producer from Austin, Texas.-Biography:...

is an Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

ian-born American avant-garde

Avant-garde

Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

musician

Musician

A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

and record producer

Record producer

A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

from Austin, Texas

Austin, Texas

Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...

. The Japanese multi-instrumentalist and experimental musical instrument builder Yuichi Onoue developed a two string hurdy gurdy

Hurdy gurdy

The hurdy gurdy or hurdy-gurdy is a stringed musical instrument that produces sound by a crank-turned rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to a violin...

like fretless violin, called the Kaisatsuko

Kaisatsuko

The kaisatsuko is an electric experimental musical instrument invented by Yuichi Onoue of Tokyo, Japan....

as well as a deeply scaloped electric guitar for microtonal

Microtonal music

playing techniques.

Solmania

Solmania

Solmania is the Osaka-based noise music project of Masahiko "Masaki" Ohno , who runs the Works Fatagaga noise record label. Formed in 1984, Solmania is one of the earliest noise projects out of Japan...

from Japan and Neptune

Neptune (band)

are noise music

Noise music

Noise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...

bands that built their own custom made guitars and basses. Solmania modifies their instruments with extra droning string and Neptune built guitars out of scrap metal and make electric lamellophone

Electric lamellophone

Electric lamellophones are lamellophones that have been electrified with an electro-magnetic pickup or contact piezo pickup.-Piezo pickup lamellophones:...

s. The bass is built using a VCR casing and another one of their instruments has a jagged scythe

Scythe

A scythe is an agricultural hand tool for mowing grass, or reaping crops. It was largely replaced by horse-drawn and then tractor machinery, but is still used in some areas of Europe and Asia. The Grim Reaper is often depicted carrying or wielding a scythe...

at the end of it. They also play on custom made percussion instruments and electric lamellophones. Neptune began in 1994 as a student art project by sculptor/musician Jason Sanford. In 2006 Neptune signed with Table of the Elements

Table of the Elements

Table of the Elements is an American record label. It concentrates on re-released and specially recorded experimental music, including many of the great avant garde musicians of the 20th and 21st centuries — John Cale, Tony Conrad and La Monte Young, for instance — as well as...

, an experimental record label that also has performers such as Rhys Chatham

Rhys Chatham

Rhys Chatham is an American composer, guitarist, and trumpet player, primarily active in avant-garde and minimalist music. He is best known for his "guitar orchestra" compositions...

, John Cale

John Cale

John Davies Cale, OBE is a Welsh musician, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground....

, Captain Beefheart

Captain Beefheart

Don Van Vliet January 15, 1941 December 17, 2010) was an American musician, singer-songwriter and artist best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. His musical work was conducted with a rotating ensemble of musicians called The Magic Band, active between 1965 and 1982, with whom he recorded 12...

on its roster.

In the 2000s, Canadian luthier

Luthier

Linda Manzer

Linda Manzer is a Canadian master luthier renowned for her archtop, flat-top and harp acoustic guitars.She received her training from Jean Larrivée between 1974 and 1978 and later studied with the late Jimmy D'Aquisto in New York....

created the Pikasso guitar, a 42-string guitar with three necks. It was popularized by jazz guitarist Pat Metheny

Pat Metheny

Patrick Bruce "Pat" Metheny is an American jazz guitarist and composer.One of the most successful and critically acclaimed jazz musicians to come to prominence in the 1970s and '80s, he is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works and other side projects...

, 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

Cubism

Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...

works of Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...

. In 2003 the Tritare

Tritare

A tritare is an experimental guitar invented in 2003 by Samuel Gaudet and Claude Gauthier of the University of Moncton of a family of stringed instruments which use Y-shaped strings, instead of the usual string-shaped strings; Y-shaped strings can produce sounds which are harmonic integer...

was created by Samuel Gaudet and Claude Gauthier in Canada. Experimental luthier Yuri Landman

Yuri Landman

Yuri Landman is a Dutch experimental luthier who has made several experimental electric string instruments for a list of artists including Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, Liars, Jad Fair of Half Japanese and Liam Finn...

built a variety of electric string resonance tailed bridge

Tailed bridge guitar

Some electric guitars have an extended bridge for their tremolo system, named a tailed bridge guitar because of its shape. Most of these tailed bridge guitars were designed in the sixties and used in surf music....

and 3rd bridge guitars

3rd Bridge

like the Moodswinger

Moodswinger

The Moodswinger is a twelve string electric zither with an additional third bridge designed by Yuri Landman. The rod which functions as the third bridge divides the strings into two sections to cause an overtone multiphonic sound...

, Moonlander and the Springtime

Springtime (guitar)

The Springtime is an experimental electric guitar with seven strings and three outputs. The instrument was created in 2008 by Dutch luthier Yuri Landman for guitar player Laura-Mary Carter of Blood Red Shoes.-Technical information:...

for indie rock

Indie rock

Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...

and noise rock

Noise rock

Noise rock describes a style of post-punk rock music that became prominent in the 1980s. Noise rock makes use of the traditional instrumentation and iconography of rock, but incorporates atonality and especially dissonance, and also frequently discards usual songwriting conventions.-Style:Noise...

acts like Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...

, Liars

Liars (band)

Liars is a three-piece band formed in 2000 consisting of Angus Andrew , Aaron Hemphill , and Julian Gross...

, Blood Red Shoes

Blood Red Shoes

Blood Red Shoes are an indie rock duo from Brighton, England. They have released two full-length albums, Box of Secrets and Fire Like This, plus a slew of early singles on limited 7" vinyl pressings.-Formation:...

as well as electric thumb piano

Thumb piano

s and electric drum guitars and spring

Spring (device)

A spring is an elastic object used to store mechanical energy. Springs are usually made out of spring steel. Small springs can be wound from pre-hardened stock, while larger ones are made from annealed steel and hardened after fabrication...

drum instruments.

In 2005, architect Nikola Bašić built a Sea organ

Sea organ

The Sea organ is an architectural object located in Zadar, Croatia and an experimental musical instrument which plays music by way of sea waves and tubes located underneath a set of large marble steps. The waves create somewhat random but harmonic sounds...

in Zadar

Zadar

Zadar is a city in Croatia on the Adriatic Sea. It is the centre of Zadar county and the wider northern Dalmatian region. Population of the city is 75,082 citizens...

, Croatia

Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

, 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.

In 2010, composer Alexis Kirke and technologist Tim Hodgson turned the University of Plymouth

University of Plymouth

Plymouth University is the largest university in the South West of England, with over 30,000 students and is 9th largest in the United Kingdom by total number of students . It has almost 3,000 staff...

'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

Peninsula Arts Contemporary Music Festival

The Peninsula Arts Contemporary Music Festival is held in Plymouth, Devon, England. It has a program of leading-edge orchestral, operatic, jazz, and electroacoustic performances, along with film, and music theatre...

. Light sensors were placed across seven floors of the building and fed by radio network into a computer music instrument analogous to a Mellotron

Mellotron

The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. It superseded the Chamberlin Music Master, which was the world's first sample-playback keyboard intended for music...

. As the sun rose the "Sunlight Symphony" played in the reverberant space of the Roland Levinsky Building's open plan foyer.

Artists

Pierre Bastien
Pierre Bastien
Pierre Bastien is a French musician, composer, and experimental musical instrument builder. He began building mechanical-based musical instruments at an early age, using items such as metronomes, cymbals, and pulleys. In 1977 he began collaborating with Pascal Comelade and composing music for...
Beck
Beck
Beck Hansen is an American musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, known by the stage name Beck...
Bruce Haack
Bruce Haack
Bruce Clinton Haack was a musician, composer, and pioneer of electronic music. He was born in Alberta, Canada.-From Alberta to New York :...
That 1 Guy
That 1 Guy
Mike Silverman, better known as That 1 Guy, is an American musician based in Las Vegas, Nevada. He frequently performs and records as a one-man band, singing and using a variety of homemade musical instruments.-Early career:...
Fifty Foot Hose
Fifty Foot Hose
Fifty Foot Hose is a psychedelic rock band that formed in San Francisco in the late 1960s, and reformed in the 1990s. They were one of the first bands to fuse rock and experimental music...
Einstürzende Neubauten
Einstürzende Neubauten
Einstürzende Neubauten is a German post-industrial band, originally from West Berlin, formed in 1980. The group currently comprises Blixa Bargeld , Alexander Hacke , N.U...
Fred Frith
Fred Frith
Fred Frith is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer and improvisor.Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. Frith was also a member of Art Bears, Massacre and Skeleton Crew...
Micachu
Micachu
Mica Levi, known by her stage name Micachu , is an English singer, songwriter, composer, and producer. She is classically trained and is best known for experimental music in a variety of genres.-Biography:...
Neptune
Neptune (band)
Neptune is a noise music band from Boston, noted for having built their custom-made guitars and basses out of scrap metal. The band also plays custom-made percussion instruments and electric lamellophones.-Band history:...
Les Luthiers
Les Luthiers
Les Luthiers is an Argentine comedy-musical group, very popular also in several other Spanish-speaking countries such as Paraguay, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Spain, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela. They were formed in 1967 by Gerardo Masana, during the height of a period of very...
The Presidents of the United States of America
The Presidents of the United States of America (band)
The Presidents of the United States of America, commonly referred to as Pot USA or "PUSA" or The Presidents, are a twice Grammy-nominated American alternative rock band. The band formed in Seattle, USA, in 1993. The three-piece group currently comprises vocalist and "basitarist" Chris Ballew,...
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum is an American experimental rock band, formed in 1999 in Oakland, California. The band fuses classical, industrial, and art-rock themes throughout their music...
Thomas Truax
Thomas Truax
Thomas Truax is an American songwriter, performer, and inventor of experimental musical instruments currently residing in London, England.-Biography:...
Charlie Hunter
Charlie Hunter
for the New Zealand racehorse trainer and driver see: Charlie HunterCharlie Hunter is an American guitarist, composer and bandleader....
Jeff Martin
Jeff Martin (Canadian musician)
Jeffrey Scott Martin is a Canadian guitarist and singer-songwriter best known for fronting the rock band The Tea Party. Martin began his career as a solo artist in October 2005, when The Tea Party disbanded....
Uakti
Uakti (band)
Uakti is a Brazilian instrumental musical group that is composed of Marco Antônio Guimarães, Artur Andrés Ribeiro, Paulo Sérgio Santos, and Décio Ramos. Uakti is known for using custom-made instruments, built by the group itself.-The name:...
Futureman
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids is an animated series created, produced, and hosted by comedian Bill Cosby, who also lent his voice to a number of characters, including Fat Albert himself. Filmation was the production company for the series. The show premiered in 1972 and ran until 1985...
Ken Butler
Ken Butler
Kenneth Lee "Ken" Butler is an artist and musician, as well as an experimental musical instrument builder. His Hybrid musical instruments and other artworks explore the interaction and transformation of common and uncommon objects, altered images, sounds and silence...

Publications

Experimental Musical Instruments (EMI) was a periodical published by Bart Hopkin
Bart Hopkin
Bart Hopkin is a builder of experimental musical instruments and a writer and publisher about the subject.Hopkin published the magazine Experimental Musical Instruments for 15 years and published several books and CDs specialized in a specialisation of certain types of instruments, such as wind...

, a leader in 20th century experimental music design and construction. Though no longer in print, back issues are still available.
Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference
International Computer Music Conference
The International Computer Music Conference is a yearly international conference for computer music researchers and composers. It is the annual conference of the International Computer Music Association ....

(ICMC)
Proceedings of the New Interfaces for Musical Expression
New Interfaces for Musical Expression
New Interfaces for Musical Expression, also known as NIME, is an international conference dedicated to scientific research on the development of new technologies for musical expression and artistic performance...

(NIME) conference

External links

oddmusic, a website dedicated to unique, odd, ethnic, experimental and unusual musical instruments and resources.
Noisejunk, an extensive list of experimental musical instrument links
EMI
NIME community page
www.siegelproductions.ca, a picture gallery of unusual instruments
Table of contents of articles on Psychevanhetvolk about experimental instruments]

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Types

1900–1950s

1950s-1960s

1970s-1980s

1990s and 2000s

Artists

Publications

Further reading

External links