Mark’s Clubhouse Strummer

Music

Gareth Branwyn is a freelance writer and the former Editorial Director of Maker Media. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books on technology, DIY, and geek culture. He is currently a contributor to Boing Boing, Wink Books, and Wink Fun. His free weekly-ish maker tips newsletter can be found at garstipsandtools.com.

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March 24th, 2009 2

MAKE Editor-in-Chief Mark Frauenfelder made this stringed instrument last weekend and posted it on Dinosaurs and Robots:

My goal was to make an electric string instrument that uses drone tuning. I don’t know anything about music theory, but drone tuning is a way to tune an instrument that makes it sound good no matter what you do with your fret fingers. Sitars, some dulcimers, and bagpipes use drone tuning. The clubhouse strummer uses GDG tuning (the Gs are one octave apart). I copied the fret layout from a strumstick, but I could have used this handy mountain dulcimer fret calculator to figure out the fret spacing.

The Clubhouse Strummer

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