Take your creations beyond the workshop and onto the stage with diy music instruments! Let us show you how these creations range from simple, basic setups that produce beautiful sounds to more complex projects that require a greater level of engineering knowledge. With these tutorials and examples, weโll guide you on this journey to make your own musical instrument for experimental, artistic or everyday use – so whether you’re starting out new or a seasoned sound creator, come explore the wonderful world of making your own music.
We’ve written about the work of instrument inventor and musician Bart Hopkin here on MAKE before. But I just spent a bunch of time on his site today and am enchanted for the experience. A lot of instrument inventor/builders create objects that look cool but don’t sound very… instrumental. Or others create devices that make great sounds but aren’t much to look at. Bart’s pieces are novel, gorgeous, and sound amazing.
Andy Cavatora and friends built these gravity harps for a Bjรถrk concert currently playing in the U.K. It looks like each pendulum has a servo-controlled rotation system that changes what note gets plunked at the pendulum’s nadir.
Though described as an “electronic instrument” and an “orchestraโฆcomposed of levitating balls whose physical height determines their volume,” London design group Poietic Studioโs “Floating Orchestra,” cool as it is, cannot possibly be producing the big, bold, brassy sounds of The Benny Goodman Orchestra that accompany their embedded video, above. Which naturally leads me to wonder what it really sounds like.
Invented by Swiss media artist Michael Egger in collaboration with Maïté Colin, the VideoBass is an instrument that plays moving images instead of sound. The performer uses their left hand on the neck of the instrument to select or scrub through video clips and triggers them in rhythm with their right hand on PlayStation controller knobs. The result is a mix of visuals that stand on their own or compliment music made by traditional instruments. Originally developed in 2003, the first incarnation of the VideoBass has undergone many revisions since.
Kirk Withrow, a surgeon and cigar box guitar maker, imparts a good deal of maker wisdom in this lovely CNN profile.
I was talking with one of our staff members tonight and mentioned some of the rock stars that we’ve written about over the years who are makers of some sort. After the call, I decided to scare them all up. Did I forget anybody that we’ve covered? How about other rock musicians who are makers of some sort?
In this vid, “mathemusician” Vi Hart and Sal Khan (of the amazing Khanacademy) discuss the difference between linear and logarithmic scales and human perception. I like their joking idea of a liner scaled piano where the keys would get fatter and fatter as you moved up the scale.
