Bart Hopkin is a builder of
experimental musical instrument
An experimental musical instrument (or custom-made 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 modi ...
s and a writer and publisher on the subject. Hopkin runs the website windworld.com, which provides resources regarding unusual instruments.
Hopkin published the magazine ''
Experimental Musical Instruments
''Experimental Musical Instruments'' was a periodical edited and published by Bart Hopkin, an instrument builder and writer about 20th century experimental music design and custom made instrument construction. Though no longer in print, back issu ...
'' for 15 years and published several books and CDs specialized in a specialisation of certain types of instruments, such as
wind chime
Wind chimes are a type of percussion instrument constructed from suspended tubes, rods, bells or other objects that are often made of metal or wood. The tubes or rods are suspended along with some type of weight or surface which the tubes or rod ...
s,
plosive aerophones
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips ...
and
marimba
The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...
s. For these publications, Hopkin regularly asks experts on the subject to co-write the books, such as
Carl Dean for the book about how to build and tune marimbas. ''Getting a Bigger Sound'' is a book Bart Hopkin wrote with Robert Cain and
Jason Lollar Jason Lollar is an American luthier, musician, and co-founder of Lollar Pickups. A 1979 graduate of the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery, Jason is the author of ''Basic Pickup Winding and Complete Guide to Making Your Own Pickup Winder'', now in i ...
about amplification of sound sources with several types of pickups ranging from
piezo disc pickups to common pickups often used in electric guitars. Jason Lollar is a known builder of hand-wound
electro-magnetic pickups.
Besides writing, he has also built several experimental musical instruments such as wooden saxophones, the Bell Tree,
harmonic zithers, the
Savart Wheel
The Savart wheel is an acoustical device named after the French physicist Félix Savart (1791–1841), which was originally conceived and developed by the English scientist Robert Hooke (1635–1703).
A card held to the edge of a spinning tooth ...
, the Trillium Harp, the Trillium Cluster, and many other instruments that are difficult to categorize.
In 2012, he published the book ''
Nice Noise
Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative ...
'', about
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. This practice is sometimes called tabletop guitar, because many prepared guitar ...
techniques written by Hopkin and experimental builder
Yuri Landman
Yuri Landman (born 1 February 1973) is a Dutch inventor of musical instruments and musician who has made several experimental electric string instruments for a number of artists including Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, Liars, Jad Fair of Half Japan ...
. The book also features contributions by other builders such as
Bradford Reed
Bradford Reed is an American multi-instrumentalist, experimental luthier, and member of the avant-garde band King Missile III. In the 1980s he invented the pencilina, a custom made string instrument.
Pencilina
The pencilina is a custom-made str ...
,
Sam Dook (guitarist of
The Go! Team
The Go! Team are an English six-piece band from Brighton, England. The band initially began as a solo project conceived by Ian Parton; however, after the unexpected success of The Go! Team's debut album, '' Thunder, Lightning, Strike'', Parton r ...
),
Fred Carlson,
David Canwright,
Dante Rosati and
Neil Feather as well as info about
John Schneiders
microtonal
Microtonal music or microtonality is the use in music of microtones— intervals smaller than a semitone, also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of t ...
guitars. The book was simultaneously released with 60 sound samples on
bandcamp
Bandcamp is an American online audio distribution platform founded in 2007 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with headquarters in Oakland, California, US. On March 2, 2022, Bandcamp ...
and
SoundCloud
SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website that enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is one of the largest music streaming se ...
.
Publications
*''Experimental Musical Instruments'', magazine, 70 issues appeared as a printed publication between 1985 and 1999, later on re-issued as well on CD-ROM
Books
*''Musical Instrument Design'', 1996,
See Sharp Press Charles Bufe, better known as Chaz Bufe, is a contemporary American anarchist author. Bufe primarily writes on the problems faced by the modern anarchist movement (as in his pamphlet " Listen, Anarchist!"), and also on atheism, music theory and ...
*
Gravikord
The Gravikord is a 24 string electric double bridge-harp invented by Robert Grawi in 1984, which is closely related to both the West African kora and the mbira. It was designed to employ a separated double tonal array structure making it possibl ...
s, Whirlies and Pyrophones. Book & CD, Orange, Connecticut: Ellipsis Arts. #3530, 1998
*''Making Musical Instruments with Kids'', See Sharp Press
*''Slap Tubes and other plosive Aerophones'' – Bart Hopkin and
Philip Dadson
Philip Dadson (born 1946 in Napier, New Zealand) is a New Zealand musician and artist, who was in the foundation group for the Scratch Orchestra and founder of From Scratch. He lectured at the Elam School of Fine Arts, part of the Universit ...
, Experimental Musical Instruments
*''Getting a Bigger Sound'' – Bart Hopkin with Robert Cain and
Jason Lollar Jason Lollar is an American luthier, musician, and co-founder of Lollar Pickups. A 1979 graduate of the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery, Jason is the author of ''Basic Pickup Winding and Complete Guide to Making Your Own Pickup Winder'', now in i ...
*Making Marimbas and Other Bar Percussion Instruments – Bart Hopkin and
Carl Dean with
Christopher Banta
*
Wind Chimes
Wind chimes are a type of percussion instrument constructed from suspended tubes, rods, bells or other objects that are often made of metal or wood. The tubes or rods are suspended along with some type of weight or surface which the tubes or rods ...
, Design and Construction, Experimental Musical Instruments
*Funny Noises for the Connoisseur, Book and audio CD – Bart Hopkin with
Ray Brunelle and
Vincent Nicastro
Vincent ( la, Vincentius) is a male given name derived from the Roman name Vincentius, which is derived from the Latin word (''to conquer'').
People with the given name Artists
*Vincent Apap (1909–2003), Maltese sculptor
*Vincent van Gogh ...
*Air Columns and Tone Holes: Principles for Wind, Experimental Musical Instruments
*''
Nice Noise
Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative ...
'' – Bart Hopkin and
Yuri Landman
Yuri Landman (born 1 February 1973) is a Dutch inventor of musical instruments and musician who has made several experimental electric string instruments for a number of artists including Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, Liars, Jad Fair of Half Japan ...
, 72 pgs, Full Color, 2012, Experimental Musical Instruments,
CDs
* INSTUMENTARIUM HOPKINIS, Bart Hopkin Plays Invented Instruments, 2002
* AFTER SEVEN YEARS, Guitar Music from Bart Hopkin, 2003
* BOSSAS, BALLADS, AND BLUES, Dale Polissar, clarinet, and Bart Hopkin, guitar, 2004
* 21 WAYS OF LOOKING AT THINGS, Sound Instruments Designed by Bart Hopkin, 2007
* MELANGE, Dale Polissar, clarinet, and Bart Hopkin, guitar, 2009
See also
*
Harry Partch
Harry Partch (June 24, 1901 – September 3, 1974) was an American composer, music theorist, and creator of unique musical instruments. He composed using scales of unequal intervals in just intonation, and was one of the first 20th-century com ...
, American pioneer on experimental lutherie
*
Nicolas Collins
Nicolas Collins (born March 26, 1954 in New York City) is a composer of mostly electronic music, a sound artist and writer. He received his BA and MA from Wesleyan University, and his PhD from the University of East Anglia. Upon graduating from ...
, another author with a focus on somewhat identical topics
References
interview with Hopkinby
New Music Box, a website from the
American Music Center
New Music USA is a new music organization formed by the merging of the American Music Center with Meet The Composer on November 8, 2011. The new organization retains the granting programs of the two former organizations as well as two media progr ...
blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/10/the-musical-invention-of-bart-hopkin
External links
Bart Hopkin's websiteExperimental Musical Instruments websiteExperimental Musical Instruments website, Bart Hopkin's pagesMentioned in passing as one of the first of "Fr. Ho Lung and friends"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hopkin, Bart
American musical instrument makers
American writers about music
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
Inventors of musical instruments