Upright Bungee Cord Bass

The Fiddle and the Zither

Sister of the Door-o-phone

I really don’t have much to say about this instrument. I enjoyed the layout of the Door-o-phone and thought I could reproduce it. I don’t really think it came out with the same feel to it. It was hung in a show and forgotten about until I found the Raga and the Drone in my files. I also wanted to use up the nylon strings that have been in my string box for far to long.

Banjito

My sweet Banjito, I had no idea how much I missed you until you came into my life. All these years without even knowing what you were, and then a rash decision in New Brunswick to leave my homeland led me to your skeleton, which in turn led to your creation. As a rule I like to stay away from buying old broken instrument bodies, but when I came across this frame in Maine I knew it would be insane to refrain. It was the sweetest ten American dollars I have ever spent, and now I'm glad I did. Up until two days ago I was content to have you hang on my wall forever, untouched by my hands and my madness, but alas, things in this apartment rarely stay the same. Sometimes all it takes is a few hours on the couch staring off into space for a really good idea to hit me, and hit me you did. I now think I am going to have to change my policy on instruments busted and bloodied, broken and blue. This one piece has inspired me to do an entire series of Spare Parts Experimental Instruments.

As I say, the neck and the body were found at a flea market in Maine. The head was half of a two piece kid's bongo set which, once separated, was again cut in half. I have to thank my friend Mike Whitla for those. The saddle came from eBay, but at the time I thought I was buying a bag of nuts, so go figure. And the black thing it's mounted on is a remnant from the fire at my buddy Brian's place (many a good instrument, and pieces of art were lost that day) Even the screws holding it together came from my friend and boss, Jules of Jules and Tools, and yes, if you were wondering, I do in fact make up one of the tools in the Jules and Tools conglomerate. I guess the only thing that was mine was the cheese grater I found in our utensils drawer which I have no recollection of buying, so it must have been Jen's. I guess the only contribution I added to it was the strings, and you can buy those anywhere.

Now I just have to find somebody brave or crazy enough to try and play my sweet Banjito. Any takers?

Iner and Banjito out.

1 comments:

Mike Whitla said...

So those bongos were handy.
8:45 AM

Double Thumb Piano Zither

My Oblique Strategy for the Double Thumb Piano Zither is Abandon Normal Instruments

Tincanjoe

It had to be done. Jen came home one day with a book on tin can art and I was hooked.

My Oblique Strategy for the Tincanjoe was Forced with a choice do both (Given by Diter Rot)

the Door-o-Phone

I think it was Dave who came up with the name for this one, and it is Dave who has hidden this instrument away from me. This is one of the only photos that exist of the Door-o-Phone.

One day we shall be reunited, until then I will think of you fondly.

My Oblique Strategy for the Door-o-Phone was Simply a matter of work

Spare Parts Wall Mount

My Oblique Strategy for the Spare Parts Wall Mount was Trust in the you of now

Electro Little Fiddle

This is my first real attempt at trying to document the steps one would take when deciding to build a functional and aesthetically pleasing experimental instrument. I did put a lot of work into the sound design of this particular instrument. There is a sound post placed just under the bridge, and a piece of wood glues on to the underside running length wise that is suppose to pick up more of the bass of the instrument. It also has a contact mic build directly into the belly of this strange beast. The neck was found somewhere close to Niagara Falls. I was in a rental with my brother in-law and the rest just gets a little blurry for that weekend. I also use the same neck piece to repair Alex’s Left Handed Bass, but that’s a story for another day. The rest of the body I built myself. As you can tell it looks something like a triangle. That’s because things with too many curve make me feel uncomfortable. The output is on the left hand side of the instrument, a simple quarter inch output. I do wish I had of put a volume control somewhere.

So plug it in and rock on, or something along those lines. Maybe you’re into Jazz?

Unfortunately I never really got the chance to play, or rather in my case, make horrible screeching cat death like noises. This instrument along with almost all my others is currently hanging in a show I have in Parkdale. The place is called Mitzi’s Sister. It’s a great place to see live bands seven days a week for free. They also have a great permanent collection of art hanging in the music area done by yours truly. Just scroll down this increasing large page to find out which instruments are there.

Sitar Fan

Buzz Zither

Round Bowed String Thing

MV4 the Chicken Cooker in Green

I had to do it; the Chicken Cooker in Green was at best a mediocre wall piece, and now it is something much more special to me. Strung up the same as the MV1, the MV2, and the Electro-acoustic Dobro/MV3, now I have something to play when I get together for my weekly jam. Something wonderful has happened to the Single String and it has nothing to do with me.

The idea came to me as I was traveling around the Niagara Region this past long weekend. Whenever we go away, second hand and junkshops are always on the agenda. I can usually find one of my beloved grill plates on these excursions. This long weekend I wasn’t so lucky in that department. I had also just taken my

show down from Mitzi’s Café in Parkdale where the original Chicken Cooker in Green was hanging. When I came home I had decided that it was time to take some of the less successful of instruments and start rebuilding them, making them stronger and faster. Oh wait, that’s something else.

The Chicken Cooker in Green, or as we say in the biz the CCG was the first on the list, mainly because it was sitting on the floor in the downstairs hallway being tripped over every time you walked by, even if you could see it. I did use some of my new acquisitions in the rebuilding

process. There were a few neat things that I found. Hopefully I will post their outcomes in the next few weeks. Just click on the instruments I spoke of above if you would like to read more about there good and bad times. So now the CCG it has been rebuilt into the MV4CCG, and I’m much happier now. Oh wait, that was also something else.

Here is a sketch I did prior to the re-construction of the Chicken Cooker in Green. As you can see, it didn't turn out exactly as I had planned, but that's the way it goes some time.
I have posted other sketches throughout the blog.

Metal Gopichand

I found this instrument in a pile of trash in my space room. It was something I built many years ago and forgotten about. When I found it had about ten useless strings on it. Five different speakers place at various points on the instrument that I wired all together in hopes of finding some interesting kind of pick up, that didn’t work at all. For the most part I would stay away from using a speaker as a microphone, but experiment, on the rare occasion it does work like with the Sunflower of Death. I also used a contact mic with the Sunflower. There were also three tin cans with racket balls mounted in them to be used with sticks. These sucked, they really, really sucked. So after I found this mess I was ready to just throw it out. It wasn’t until I was half way through striping it for screws, nuts and bolts that I realized the Metal Gopichand could be built back into its original idea. I often find that if I work on something too long I end up over doing the instrument, or any form of art for that matter. Sometimes simplicity is best. I know it is a simple instrument, but it’s easy to build, and you can get some neat sounds out of it. All you have to do is pluck the string and apply pressure to the two arms, squeezing them in and out as you pluck.

The Hairdryer Harp

All you need is an old body from a salon hairdryer, a chicken cooking grill plate, and some parts from an old chair. OK maybe some tuning pegs and guitar strings thrown in for sound.
This piece came together quite by accident. I was working on some percussive instrument and was looking for some small pieces of metal to add for visual stimulation. Most of my stimulating metal lived in what is now the body of the Hairdryer Harp. As I was rooting through my collection of metal bits it came to me like a thief in the night. Well not really, but it sounds better that way. I always have a few extra cooking plates lying around for just such a moment. So when the idea of building a harp from a hairdryer came into my head I knew just where to go. I dumped out the shinny metal bits on the floor, where they still lay. The chair parts were lost a few months ago under our too small to be comfortable couch. The grill plates are scattered throughout our apartment, and the machine heads and strings are at Steve’s Music downtown. It’s that easy. I think I might put the fan blower back in just in case I need to do something with my hair.

The Bowed Web of Tacky Instruments

This is by far the ugliest of all the instruments I have built, and for some reason that makes me love it all the more. It was suppose to be a simple hand drum in the beginning. Sometimes these things have a life of there own, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

So I guess it's kind of like a cross between a cello and a banjo made from a snare drum. It'’s not as scary as it sounds. There are only two frets on the instrument, but they sit about three inches off the neck. There are three bowed strings, two drone strings, and one sympathetic string. I have no idea why that their, aside from the fact that I had one tuning peg without a string. That'’s good enough of a reason for me. The swirls are from one my metal dresses that was mostly destroyed in a fire. I'm glad this little bit found itself a new home.

Even if that home is really freaking ugly.