Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society » A Compendium of Odd Instruments

March 16th, 2006

A Compendium of Odd Instruments

KIRCHERIAN HARMONICS WEEK:

Reader Alexander points us to oddmusic.com, a delicious catalogue of exotic musical instruments. All of the images and text below are excerpted from the site, where you can also hear audio samples.

	Bikelophone “Originally constructed in June 1995 as a side instrument for The Lyle and Sparkleface Band, the bikelophone has evolved into a palette of sonic exploration. With magnetic pickups attached to amplify the sound, anything connected to the bike becomes amplified. The current configuration includes - bass strings, scrap wood and metal, metal bowls, telephone bells, a mechanical foot pedal and a touch sensitive tone generator. The bikelophone produces sounds ranging from tranquil bliss to cacophonic terror.”
	Beer Bottle Organ “Made by Peterson Tuners, yes, the sound is actually produced by blowing air over the tops of real beer bottles. The bottles are filled or “tuned” using mineral oil, so it will not evaporate or change tunings during weather changes. It can be played with the organ keys, or by a MIDI device.”
	Double Violin “Part of an ongoing project that has lasted over 25 years, another one of Jon Rose’s “Relative Violins”, here we see a 10-string double violin, sharing the same fingerboard. This is the development of a Total Artform based around the one instrument. Necessary to this concept has been innovation in the fields of new instrument design (over 20 deconstructed violin instruments including the legendary double piston and triple neck wheeling violin)”
	Stamenphone “This sculpture is a 16-stringed, 6ft, pendulum-shaped instrument, with a stainless steel resonating chamber, that is suspended from the ceiling and played using a cello bow to bring out upper partials. The Stamenphone hums and wails empyrean melodies, evocative of whales and cellos and mermaid songs.”
	Singing Stones “The instrument is created with 100 river rocks suspended by music wire from a wing-shaped sound box and hanging in a steep arch. The strings (vibrating longitudinally) release their music as the performers dance and, with rosin-covered gloves, stroke, caress, and tug the strings.”
	Pikasso “Four necks. Two sound holes. 42 strings. Two access doors; one on the upper player’s side and one at the tail block. Created by luthier Linda Manzer for guitarist Pat Metheny, the instrument took 2 years to build (approximately 1000 hours), and when the 42 strings are strung up to high tension, the Pikasso is under approximately 1000 lbs pressure.”

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A Compendium of Odd Instruments

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