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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 modifications, such as cracked drum cymbals or metal objects inserted between piano strings in a
prepared piano A prepared piano is a piano that has had its sounds temporarily altered by placing bolts, screws, mutes, rubber erasers, and/or other objects on or between the strings. Its invention is usually traced to John Cage's dance music for ''Works for p ...
. Some experimental instruments are created from household items like a homemade
mute Muteness is a speech disorder in which a person lacks the ability to speak. Mute or the Mute may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Mute'' (2005 film), a short film by Melissa Joan Hart * ''Mute'' (2018 film), a scien ...
for brass instruments such as bathtub plugs. Other experimental instruments are created from electronic spare parts, or by mixing acoustic instruments with electric components. The instruments created by the earliest 20th-century builders of experimental musical instruments, such as
Luigi Russolo Luigi Carlo Filippo Russolo (30 April 1885 – 4 February 1947) was an Italian Futurist painter, composer, builder of experimental musical instruments, and the author of the manifesto ''The Art of Noises'' (1913). He is often regarded as one of ...
(1885–1947),
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 ...
(1901–1974), and John Cage (1912–1992), were not well received by the public at the time of their invention. Even mid-20th century builders such as
Ivor Darreg Ivor Darreg (May 5, 1917 – February 12, 1994) was an American composer and leading proponent of microtonal or " xenharmonic" music. He also created a series of experimental musical instruments. Biography Darreg, a contemporary of Harry Part ...
,
Pierre Schaeffer Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer (English pronunciation: , ; 14 August 1910 – 19 August 1995) was a French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer, musicologist, acoustician and founder of Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète (GRMC). His inno ...
and Pierre Henry did not gain a great deal of popularity. However, by the 1980s and 1990s, experimental musical instruments gained a wider audience when they were used by bands such as
Einstürzende Neubauten (, 'Collapsing New Buildings') is a German experimental music group, formed in West Berlin in 1980. The group is currently composed of founding members Blixa Bargeld (lead vocals; guitar; keyboard) and N.U. Unruh ( custom-made instruments; p ...
and Neptune.


Types

Experimental musical instruments are made from a wide variety of materials, using a range of different sound-production techniques. Some of the simplest instruments are percussion instruments made from scrap metal, like those created by German band Einstürzende Neubauten. Some experimental
hydraulophone A hydraulophone is a tonal acoustic musical instrument played by direct physical contact with water (sometimes other fluids) where sound is generated or affected hydraulically."Fluid Melodies: The hydraulophones of Professor Steve Mann" In Wate ...
s have been made using sewer pipes and plumbing fittings. Since the late 1960s, many experimental musical instruments have incorporated electric or electronic components, such as Fifty Foot Hose 1967-era homemade synthesizers,
Wolfgang Flür Wolfgang Flür (born 17 July 1947) is a German musician, best known for playing percussion in the electronic group Kraftwerk from 1973 to 1987. Flür claims that he invented the electric drums the group used throughout the 1970s. However, pa ...
and
Florian Schneider Florian Schneider-Esleben (7 April 194721 April 2020) was a German musician. He is best known as one of the founding members and leaders of the electronic band Kraftwerk, performing his role with the band until his departure in 2008. Early li ...
's playable electronic percussion pads, and
Future Man Roy Wilfred Wooten (born October 13, 1957), also known as RoyEl, best known by his stage name Future Man (also written Futureman and known to fans as Futche) is an American musician, inventor and composer. He is best known as a member of jazz ...
's homemade drum machine made out of spare parts and his electronic Synthaxe Drumitar. Some experimental musical instruments are created by luthiers, who are trained in the construction of string instruments. Some custom made string instruments are employed with three
bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...
s, instead of the usual two (counting the
nut Nut often refers to: * Nut (fruit), fruit composed of a hard shell and a seed, or a collective noun for dry and edible fruits or seeds * Nut (hardware), fastener used with a bolt Nut or Nuts may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Co ...
as a bridge). By adding a third bridge, one can create a number of unusual sounds reminiscent of chimes,
bell A bell is a directly struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides forming an efficient resonator. The strike may be made by an inte ...
s or harps A 'third bridge instrument' can be a "
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 ...
" modified with an object – for instance, a screwdriver – placed under the strings to act as a makeshift bridge, or it can be a
custom made 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 modif ...
. One of the first guitarists who began building instruments with an extra bridge was Fred Frith. Guitarist and composer
Glenn Branca Glenn may refer to: Name or surname * Glenn (name) * John Glenn, U.S. astronaut Cultivars * Glenn (mango) * a 6-row barley variety Places In the United States: * Glenn, California * Glenn County, California * Glenn, Georgia, a settleme ...
has created similar instruments which he calls harmonic guitars or mallet guitars. Since the 1970s, German guitarist and luthier
Hans Reichel Hans Reichel (10 May 1949 – 22 November 2011) was a German improvisational guitarist, experimental luthier, inventor, and type designer. Career Reichel was born in Hagen, Germany. He began to teach himself violin at age seven, playing in the ...
has created guitars with third-bridge-like qualities. Modern-day low voltage electronic experimental musical instruments, can be found at Bentmonkeycage in California. These glitched instruments are used in movie soundtracks, Live DUBNOISE performances, DJ performances, and recording. The electronic unengineered circuitry within the device can be manipulated with simple body contacts, light sensitive photocells, infrared signals, and radio waves (as in a theremin).


History


1900–1950s

Luigi Russolo (1885–1947) was an Italian
Futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abo ...
painter and composer, and the author of the manifestoes ''
The Art of Noises ''The Art of Noises'' ( it, L'arte dei Rumori) is a Futurist manifesto written by Luigi Russolo in a 1913 letter to friend and Futurist composer Francesco Balilla Pratella. In it, Russolo argues that the human ear has become accustomed to the ...
'' (1913) and ''Musica Futurista''. Russolo invented and built instruments including
intonarumori Intonarumori are experimental musical instruments invented and built by the Italian futurist Luigi Russolo between roughly 1910 and 1930. There were 27 varieties of intonarumori built in total, with different names. Background Russolo built ...
("intoners" or "noise machines"), to create "noises" for performance. Although none of his original intonarumori survived World War II, replicas are being made.
Léon Theremin Leon Theremin (born Lev Sergeyevich Termen rus, Лев Сергеевич Термéн, p=ˈlʲef sʲɪrˈɡʲejɪvʲɪtɕ tɨrˈmʲen; – 3 November 1993) was a Russian and Soviet inventor, most famous for his invention of the theremin, one o ...
was a Russian inventor, most famous for his invention of the
theremin The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone/etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named afte ...
around 1919–1920, one of the first electronic musical instruments. The
Ondes Martenot The ondes Martenot ( ; , "Martenot waves") or ondes musicales ("musical waves") is an early electronic musical instrument. It is played with a keyboard or by moving a ring along a wire, creating "wavering" sounds similar to a theremin. A player ...
is another early example of an electronic musical instrument. The
luthéal The luthéal is a kind of hybrid piano which extended the "register" possibilities of a piano by producing cimbalom-like sounds in some registers, exploiting harmonics of the strings when pulling other register-stops, and also some registers makin ...
is a type of prepared piano created by George Cloetens in the late 1890s and used by Maurice Ravel in his ''Tzigane'' for luthéal and violin. The instrument can produce sounds like a
guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...
or a harmonica, with strange tick-tocking sounds. It had several tone-colour (not exclusively "pitch")
register Register or registration may refer to: Arts entertainment, and media Music * Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc. * ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller * Registration (organ), th ...
s that could be engaged by pulling stops above the keyboard. One of these registers had a
cimbalom The cimbalom (; ) or concert cimbalom is a type of chordophone composed of a large, trapezoidal box on legs with metal strings stretched across its top and a damping pedal underneath. It was designed and created by V. Josef Schunda in 1874 in ...
-like sound, which fitted well with the gypsy-esque idea of the composition. Harry Partch (1901–1974) was an American composer and instrument builder. He was one of the first twentieth-century composers to work extensively and systematically with
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 ...
scales, writing much of his
music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...
for
custom-made instruments 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 ...
he built himself, tuned in 11- limit just intonation. His adapted instruments include the adapted viola, three adapted guitars, and a 10-string fretless guitar. As well, he retuned the reeds of several
reed organ The pump organ is a type of free-reed organ that generates sound as air flows past a vibrating piece of thin metal in a frame. The piece of metal is called a reed. Specific types of pump organ include the reed organ, harmonium, and melodeon. T ...
s and designed and built many instruments from raw materials, including the Diamond Marimba, Cloud Chamber Bowls, the Spoils of War, and a Gourd Tree. John Cage (1912–1992) was an American composer who pioneered the fields of
chance music Aleatoric music (also aleatory music or chance music; from the Latin word ''alea'', meaning " dice") is music in which some element of the composition is left to chance, and/or some primary element of a composed work's realization is left to the ...
,
electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroa ...
and unorthodox use of musical instruments. Cage's prepared piano pieces used a piano with its sound altered by placing various objects in the strings. He was the first to use phonograph records as musical instruments (in his 1939 composition Imaginary Landscape No.1). Cage also devised ways to perform using sounds which were nearly inaudible by incorporating photograph cartridges and contact microphones (his 1960 composition Cartridge Music).
Ivor Darreg Ivor Darreg (May 5, 1917 – February 12, 1994) was an American composer and leading proponent of microtonal or " xenharmonic" music. He also created a series of experimental musical instruments. Biography Darreg, a contemporary of Harry Part ...
(1917–1994) was a leading proponent of and composer of
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 ...
or " xenharmonic" music. He also created a series of experimental musical instruments. In the 1940s, Darreg built an amplified cello, amplified clavichord and an electric keyboard drum.


1950s–1960s

Kraftwerk is known for their homemade synthesizers in the early 70s. In the 1960s, Michel Waisvisz and Geert Hamelberg developed the Kraakdoos (or Cracklebox), a custom made battery-powered noise-making electronic device. It is a small box with six metal contacts on top, which when pressed by fingers will generate a range of unusual sounds and tones. The human body becomes a part of the circuit and determines the range of sounds possible; different people will generate different sounds.
Jesse Fuller Jesse Fuller (March 12, 1896 – January 29, 1976) was an American one-man band musician, best known for his song "San Francisco Bay Blues". Early life Fuller was born in Jonesboro, Georgia, near Atlanta. He was sent by his mother to live with ...
developed the Fotdella, a foot-operated string bass instrument, in the early 1950s. It was a large upright box with a rounded top, shaped like the top of a double bass, with a short neck on top. Six bass strings were attached to the neck and stretched over the body. Fuller would use this instrument as part of his
one-man band A one-man band is a musician who plays a number of instruments simultaneously using their hands, feet, limbs, and various mechanical or electronic contraptions. One-man bands also often sing while they perform. The simplest type of "one-man ban ...
performances. Walter Smetak was a Swiss-Brazilian composer, cellist , sculpturer, and instrument inventor, who was highly influential in Brazil and other countries. Invited by
Hans-Joachim Koellreutter Hans-Joachim Koellreutter (2 September 1915 – 13 September 2005) was a Brazilian composer, teacher and musicologist. Koellreutter was born in Freiburg, Germany and lived in Brazil from 1937 onward, where he became one of the country's most i ...
he was appointed professor in Salvador, Universidade Federal da Bahia. He opened a workshop where he created musical instruments with vegetable gourds, pieces of wook, PVC pipes and plates, and other non conventional materials. Many of his instruments are more than useful sound tools, being sculptures influenced by his mystical approach to life and art. From 1957 to 1984, when he died, Smetak invented and built ca. 150 instruments, which he called generally as "plásticas sonoras".


1970s–1980s

The neola is a tenor
stringed musical instrument String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the st ...
invented in 1970 by Goronwy Bradley Davies,
Llanbedr Llanbedr () is a village and community south of Harlech. Administratively, it lies in the Ardudwy area, formerly Meirionnydd, of the county of Gwynedd, Wales. History Ancient monuments at Llanbedr include Neolithic standing stones; the St ...
, Wales. Plastics and aluminium were used in the design and the invention was recognized in a British patent and a Design Council award. The name "Neola" was registered for the instrument. The invention is intended as a tenor, replacing an instrument in the
viol The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitc ...
family that has been surpassed by the more recent
violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...
family. The strings are tuned to G2, D3, A3, and E4, an octave below the violin, and the instrument may be performed similar to a
violoncello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G2, D ...
. ‘Cello players would need to adapt their technique to accommodate the shorter string and body length, and use of the thumb position would not be the same. The design specifications are well suited to industrial manufacture, retaining consistency in quality. This is not the case with traditional instruments since the choice of fine materials and the skills of the luthier are essential in producing instruments with superior sound qualities. In the mid-1970s, Allan Gittler (1928–2003) made an experimental custom-made instrument called the Gittler guitar. The Gittler guitar has 6 strings, each string has its own pickup. The later versions have a plastic body. The steel frets give the instrument a
sitar The sitar ( or ; ) is a plucked stringed instrument, originating from the Indian subcontinent, used in Hindustani classical music. The instrument was invented in medieval India, flourished in the 18th century, and arrived at its present form ...
-like feel. Six individual pick ups can be routed to divided outputs.
Z'EV Z'EV (born Stefan Joel Weisser, February 8, 1951 – December 16, 2017) was an American poet, percussionist, and sound artist. After studying various world music traditions at CalArts, he began creating his own percussion sounds out of indust ...
and Einstürzende Neubauten made several percussion instruments out of trash. No Wave artist
Glenn Branca Glenn may refer to: Name or surname * Glenn (name) * John Glenn, U.S. astronaut Cultivars * Glenn (mango) * a 6-row barley variety Places In the United States: * Glenn, California * Glenn County, California * Glenn, Georgia, a settleme ...
began building
3rd bridge The 3rd bridge is an extended playing technique used on the electric guitar and other string instruments that allows a musician to produce distinctive timbres and overtones that are unavailable on a conventional string instrument with two bri ...
zithers with an additional movable bridge positioned on the just intoned knotted positions of the harmonic series.
Hans Reichel Hans Reichel (10 May 1949 – 22 November 2011) was a German improvisational guitarist, experimental luthier, inventor, and type designer. Career Reichel was born in Hagen, Germany. He began to teach himself violin at age seven, playing in the ...
(born 1949) is a German
improvisational Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...
guitarist, luthier, and inventor. Reichel has constructed and built several variations of guitars and basses, most of them featuring multiple
fretboard The fingerboard (also known as a fretboard on fretted instruments) is an important component of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of material, usually wood, that is laminated to the front of the neck of an instrument. The st ...
s and unique positioning of pickups as well as the same indirect playing technique as Branca's instruments. The resulting sounds exceed the range of conventional
tuning Tuning can refer to: Common uses * Tuning, the process of tuning a tuned amplifier or other electronic component * Musical tuning, musical systems of tuning, and the act of tuning an instrument or voice ** Guitar tunings ** Piano tuning, adjusti ...
and add effects from odd overtones to metallic tones. He later invented the daxophone which he is most famous for. It consists of a single wooden blade or "tongue" fixed in a block containing a contact microphone. Normally played by bowing the free end, it can also be struck or plucked. The location along the tongue where it is played will determine the frequency of its vibration, similarly to a wooden ruler held against the edge of a table. These vibrations continue to the wooden-block base, which in turn is amplified by the contact microphone(s). A wide range of voice-like
timbre In music, timbre ( ), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound quality of a musical note, sound or tone. Timbre distinguishes different types of sound production, such as choir voices and musica ...
s can be produced, depending on the shape of the tongue, the type of wood, where it is played, and where along its length it is stopped with a separate block of wood ( fretted on one side) called the "dax." American composer Ellen Fullman (born in 1957) developed a Long String instrument in the early 1980s, which is tuned in just intonation and played by walking along the length of the long strings and rubbing them with
rosin Rosin (), also called colophony or Greek pitch ( la, links=no, pix graeca), is a solid form of resin obtained from pines and some other plants, mostly conifers, produced by heating fresh liquid resin to vaporize the volatile liquid terpene comp ...
ed hands and producing longitudinal vibrations.
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 ...
invented the pencilina, a custom-made string instrument in the 1980s. It is a double-neck 3rd bridge guitar that is similar in construction to two long, thin zithers connected by a stand. Wedged over and under the strings in each neck is an adjustable rod, a wooden drum stick for the guitar strings and a metal rod for the bass strings. In addition, there are four
bell A bell is a directly struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides forming an efficient resonator. The strike may be made by an inte ...
s. The pencilina is played by striking its strings and bells with sticks. The strings may also be plucked or bowed. Uakti (WAHK-chee) is a Brazilian instrumental musical group active in the 1980s known for using
custom-made instruments 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 ...
built by the group. Marco Antônio constructed various instruments in his basement out of PVC pipe, wood, and metal. Remo Saraceni made a number of Synthesizer type instruments with unusual interfaces, his most famous being The Walking piano made famous in the film ''
Big Big or BIG may refer to: * Big, of great size or degree Film and television * ''Big'' (film), a 1988 fantasy-comedy film starring Tom Hanks * ''Big!'', a Discovery Channel television show * ''Richard Hammond's Big'', a television show present ...
.'' In the 1980s, the folgerphone was developed. It is a
wind instrument A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator (usually a tube) in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into (or over) a mouthpiece set at or near the end of the resonator. The pitc ...
(or aerophone), classifiable as a
woodwind Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments. Common examples include flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and re ...
rather than brass instrument despite being made of metal, because it has a reed (cf.
saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...
). It is made from an
alto sax The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in E, smaller than the B ten ...
mouthpiece, with copper tubing and a coffee can. Although it uses sax parts, it is a cylindrical bore instrument, and thus part of the clarinet family. In India, the new instrument based on harmonium style was developed b
Pt. Manohar Chimote
with the combination of keys and sympathetic strings to create the tone most suitable for solo playing. This was named as "Samvadini". It is based on just intonation tuning system and played in one key. It is exclusive solo instrument with great potentials. His followe
Jitendra Gore
now plays this solo instrument.


1990s and 2000s

The
bazantar The bazantar is a custom made instrument, custom made string instrument invented by musician Mark Deutsch, who worked on the design between 1993 and 1997. Overview The Bazantar is a six-string acoustic bass, fitted with an additional twenty-nin ...
is a five-string
double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar i ...
with 29 sympathetic and 4 drone strings and has a melodic range of five octaves invented by musician Mark Deutsch, who worked on the design between 1993 and 1997. It is designed as a separate housing for sympathetic strings (to deal with the increased string tension) mountable on a double bass or
cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G ...
, modified to hold drone strings. Ken Butler makes odd-shaped, guitar-like instruments made out of trash, rifles and other material. He also builds violins in eccentric shapes.
Cor Fuhler Cornelis William Hendrik Fuhler (3 July 1964 – 19 July 2020) was a Dutch/Australian improvisor, composer, and instrument builder associated with free jazz, experimental music and acoustic ecology. He played piano by manipulating sound with elec ...
(1964) is a Dutch/Australian improvising musician, composer and instrument builder, known for his pioneering extended piano techniques. He created the keyolin in the 1990s. The keyolin is a 2-string violin played via a mechanical keyboard, which controls pitch, vibrato, glissandos and partials. A customised bow, played upside down, controls timbre and volume. Iner Souster (born in 1971) is a builder of experimental musical instruments, visual artist, musician, fauxbot designer and film maker who lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Souster builds most of his instruments from trash, found, and salvaged materials. Some of his instruments are one-string string instruments, or
thumb piano Mbira ( ) are a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. They consist of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal tines, played by holding the instrument in the hands and ...
s. One of his more complicated instruments is the "Bowafridgeaphone" (bow a fridge a phone). Leila Bela is an
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
ian-born American
avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
musician and record producer from
Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...
. The Japanese multi-instrumentalist and experimental musical instrument builder Yuichi Onoue developed a two string
hurdy-gurdy The hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument that produces sound by a hand-crank-turned, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to those of a vi ...
like a fretless violin, called the Kaisatsuko, as well as a deeply scalloped electric guitar for
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 ...
playing techniques.
Solmania is a Japanese noise music project, founded in 1984 by . He was later joined by (ex Outo), who first appears on ''Trembling Tongues'' (1995). Ohno is known for making his own experimental electric guitars out of spare parts and using them in ...
from Japan, and Neptune are noise music bands that built their own custom made guitars and basses. Solmania modifies their instruments with extra droning strings. Neptune built guitars out of scrap metal and make
electric lamellophone A lamellophone (also lamellaphone or linguaphone) is a member of the family of musical instruments that makes its sound by a thin vibrating plate called a lamella or tongue, which is fixed at one end and has the other end free. When the musicia ...
s. The bass is built using a
VCR A videocassette recorder (VCR) or video recorder is an electromechanical device that records analog audio and analog video from broadcast television or other source on a removable, magnetic tape videocassette, and can play back the recording. ...
casing and another one of their instruments has a jagged
scythe A scythe ( ) is an agricultural hand tool for mowing grass or harvesting crops. It is historically used to cut down or reap edible grains, before the process of threshing. The scythe has been largely replaced by horse-drawn and then tractor mac ...
at the end of it. They also play on custom made
percussion instruments A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...
and
electric lamellophones A lamellophone (also lamellaphone or linguaphone) is a member of the family of musical instruments that makes its sound by a thin vibrating plate called a lamella or tongue, which is fixed at one end and has the other end free. When the musician ...
. Neptune began in 1994 as a student art project by sculptor/musician Jason Sanford. In 2006 Neptune signed with
Table of the Elements Table of the Elements is an American record label. It concentrates on re-released and specially recorded experimental music, including many avant-garde musicians of the 20th and 21st centuries: such as John Cale, Tony Conrad, La Monte Young, L ...
, an experimental record label that also has performers such as
Rhys Chatham Rhys Chatham (born September 19, 1952) is an American composer, guitarist, trumpet player, multi-instrumentalist (flutes in C, alto and bass, keyboard), primarily active in avant-garde and minimalism, minimalist music. He is best known for his "g ...
, John Cale, and Captain Beefheart on its roster. The
Blue Man Group Blue Man Group is an American performance art company formed in 1987. It was purchased in July 2017 by the Canadian company Cirque du Soleil. Blue Man Group is known for its stage productions, which incorporate many kinds of music and art, bot ...
also experimented with home-made percussive instruments, made from PVC pipes and other materials. A specially-constructed studio was needed for the recording of their first album. In the mid 1990s, Californian nu metal band
Motograter Motograter was an American heavy metal band formed in Santa Barbara, California in 1995. They are best known for their homemade, namesake instrument, designed with industrial cable and guitar pieces that creates a unique bass sound, and painti ...
invented the eponymous instrument in place of a bass guitar. The Motograter is made out of 2 large industrial springs mounted on a metal platform, producing unique chunky guitar and bass tones with a strong "RRRRRR" sound. The Motograter's sound is loosely comparable with a slow running cutting/drilling device. Founded in 1998, The Vegetable Orchestra use instruments made entirely from fresh vegetables. In the 2000s, Canadian luthier
Linda Manzer Linda Manzer (born July 2, 1952) is a Canadian master luthier renowned for her archtop guitar, archtop, flat top guitar, flat top, and harp guitars. Career Manzer was a folk singer in high school and played guitar. Her career began when she wante ...
created the Pikasso guitar, a 42-string guitar with three necks. It was popularized by jazz guitarist
Pat Metheny Patrick Bruce Metheny ( ; born August 12, 1954) is an American jazz guitarist and composer. He is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works, and other side projects. His style incorporates elements of progre ...
, who used it on the song "Into the Dream" and on several albums. Its name is ostensibly derived from its likeness in appearance to the
cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
works of
Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
. In 2000, Felix Rohner and Sabina Schärer developed the
hang Hang or Hanging may refer to: People * Choe Hang (disambiguation), various people * Luciano Hang (born 1962/1963), Brazilian billionaire businessman * Ren Hang (disambiguation), various people Law * Hanging, a form of capital punishment Arts, e ...
in Bern, Switzerland. In 2003 the
Tritare A tritare is an experimental guitar invented in 2003 by mathematicians Samuel Gaudet and Claude Gauthier of the Université de Moncton of a family of stringed instruments which use Y-shaped strings, instead of the usual linear strings. Instrument ...
was created by Samuel Gaudet and Claude Gauthier in Canada. Experimental luthier
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 ...
built a variety of electric string resonance tailed bridge and 3rd bridge guitars like the
Moodswinger The Moodswinger is a twelve-string electric zither with an additional third bridge designed by Yuri Landman. The rod which functions as the third bridge divides the strings into two sections to cause an overtone multiphonic sound. One of the copi ...
, Moonlander and the Springtime for
indie rock Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produc ...
and
noise rock Noise rock (sometimes called noise punk) is a noise-oriented style of experimental rock that spun off from punk rock in the 1980s. Drawing on movements such as minimalism, industrial music, and New York hardcore, artists indulge in extre ...
acts like Sonic Youth, Liars,
Blood Red Shoes Blood Red Shoes are an English alternative rock duo from Brighton consisting of Laura-Mary Carter and Steven Ansell. They have released six full-length albums, '' Box of Secrets'' (2008), '' Fire Like This'' (2010), '' In Time to Voices'' (2012) ...
as well as electric
thumb piano Mbira ( ) are a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. They consist of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal tines, played by holding the instrument in the hands and ...
s, electric drum guitars, and
spring Spring(s) may refer to: Common uses * Spring (season) Spring, also known as springtime, is one of the four temperate seasons, succeeding winter and preceding summer. There are various technical definitions of spring, but local usage of ...
drum instruments. In 2004, Brazilian acoustician and multi-instrumentalist Leonardo Fuks (b. 1962) formed the musical group CELLPHONICA using
mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whi ...
s as musical instruments. The exploration of mobiles as a portable instrument was a result of and academic project. It was the first documented professional ensemble to employ cell phones in such way: the players programmed music using the ringtone composing module built in the apparatus. The loudspeakers were placed close to the player's mouth, so that the sounds could be modulated by the vocal tract, generating a musically interesting quality, with several timbre, amplitude and tremolo effects. The instruments were presented in several TV shows and used in musical events. The mobile models used GSM technology , such as the
Nokia 3310 The Nokia 3310 is a GSM mobile phone announced on 1 September 2000, and released in the fourth quarter of the year, replacing the popular Nokia 3210. It sold very well, being one of the most successful phones, with 126 million units sold worl ...
, and were discontinued in the following two years, for the newly developed
smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
s by the same makers. The smartphones used MP3-coded music and sounds. In 2005, architect Nikola Bašić built a
Sea organ The Sea organ ( hr, Morske orgulje) is an architectural sound art object located in Zadar, Croatia and an experimental musical instrument, which plays music by way of sea waves and tubes located underneath a set of large marble steps. History C ...
in
Zadar Zadar ( , ; historically known as Zara (from Venetian and Italian: ); see also other names), is the oldest continuously inhabited Croatian city. It is situated on the Adriatic Sea, at the northwestern part of Ravni Kotari region. Zadar ser ...
,
Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...
, which is an experimental musical instrument which plays music by way of sea waves and tubes located underneath a set of large marble steps. Concealed under these steps is a system of polyethylene tubes and a resonating cavity that turns the site into a huge musical instrument, played by the wind and the sea. The waves create somewhat random but harmonic sounds. Instigated by composer-researcher
Georg Hajdu Georg Hajdu (born 21 June 1960) is a German composer of Hungarian descent. His work is dedicated to the combination of music, science and computer technology. He is noted for his opera ' and the network music performance environment Quintet.net ...
in 2006, Stephen Fox (clarinet maker) of Toronto, Canada, began building a new class of clarinets, called BP clarinets, able to play the
Bohlen–Pierce scale The Bohlen–Pierce scale (BP scale) is a musical tuning and scale, first described in the 1970s, that offers an alternative to the octave-repeating scales typical in Western and other musics, specifically the equal-tempered diatonic scale. T ...
of 146.3 cents per step.Müller, Nora-Louise, Konstantina Orlandatou, and Georg Hajdu. "Starting Over – Chances Afforded by a New Scale," pp. 127 and 171 in ''1001 Mikrotöne / 1001 Microtones,'' edited by Sarvenaz Safari and Manfred Stahnke. Neumünster: von Bockel Verlag, 2015. To date two available sizes are played by a small but growing number of professional clarinettists in Canada, the US, Germany and Estonia, with two more sizes under consideration. Starting in 2006,
Ice Music Festival Ice Music Festival Norway (initiated 2006 in Geilo, Norway) is a "glacial instrument" festival founded by Terje Isungset together with Pål Knutsson Medhus. Isungset had the idea behind the festival and remains the creative director. The festival ...
celebrates musical instruments made of ice. In 2010, composer
Alexis Kirke Alexis Kirke is a composer and filmmaker known for his interdisciplinary practice. He has been called "the Philip K. Dick of contemporary music". Alexis is British and lives in Plymouth, in South West England. Alexis says he takes his inspiration ...
and technologist Tim Hodgson turned the
University of Plymouth The University of Plymouth is a public research university based predominantly in Plymouth, England, where the main campus is located, but the university has campuses and affiliated colleges across South West England. With students, it is the ...
's Roland Levinsky Building into a form of musical instrument to be played by the rising sun, as part of Peninsula Arts Contemporary Music Festival. Light sensors were placed across seven floors of the building and fed by radio network into a computer music instrument analogous to a Mellotron. As the sun rose the "Sunlight Symphony" played in the reverberant space of the Roland Levinsky Building's open plan foyer. For her 2011 album Biophilia, Icelandic artist Björk developed an instrument based on a
Tesla Coil A Tesla coil is an electrical resonant transformer circuit designed by inventor Nikola Tesla in 1891. It is used to produce high-voltage, low- current, high-frequency alternating-current electricity. Tesla experimented with a number of differen ...
and a second instrument described as a cross between a
Gamelan Gamelan () ( jv, ꦒꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀, su, ᮌᮙᮨᮜᮔ᮪, ban, ᬕᬫᭂᬮᬦ᭄) is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. T ...
and a Celesta, dubbed the "Gameleste." In 2013, a research team of
McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous ...
came up with digital musical instruments made in the form of Musical Prostheses.


Builders not mentioned in the text

* Baschet Brothers * Chas Smith *
Kraig Grady Kraig Grady (born 1952) is a US-Australian composer/sound artist. He has composed and performed with an ensemble of microtonal instruments of his own design and also worked as a shadow puppeteer, tuning theorist, filmmaker, world music radio DJ ...
* Louis Hardin


Artists

*
Pierre Bastien Pierre Bastien (born 1953 in Paris) is a French musician, composer, and experimental musical instrument builder. Life and career Bastien began building mechanical-based musical instruments at an early age, using items such as metronomes, cymb ...
* Ken Butler * Cabo San Roque *
Henry Dagg Henry Dagg is a sound sculptor and builder of experimental musical instruments who formerly worked as a sound engineer for the BBC. His works include a pin barrel harp or ''sharpsichord'' which was commissioned for the English Folk Dance and ...
* Hugh Davies *
Constance Demby Constance Mary Demby (née Eggers; May 9, 1939 – March 20, 2021) was an American musician, composer, painter, sculptor, and multimedia producer. Her music fell into several categories, most notably new age, ambient and space music.Wright, Car ...
* Fifty Foot Hose * Fred Frith * Futureman *
Bruce Haack Bruce Clinton Haack (May 4, 1931 – September 26, 1988) was a Canadian musician and composer in the field of electronic music. Biography From Alberta to New York (1931-1963) Demonstrating an early ability for music, Bruce Haack is said to ha ...
* Herbie Hancock *
Les Luthiers Les Luthiers is an Argentine comedy-musical group, very popular also in several other Spanish-speaking countries including Paraguay, Guatemala, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Spain, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, Bolivia, Cuba, Costa Rica and Venezuela. They ...
*
Micachu Mica Levi (; b. 28 February 1987), also known by their stage name Micachu, is an English singer, songwriter, composer and producer. Levi is classically trained and since 2008 has released experimental pop music with their band Good Sad Happy ...
*
Moondog Louis Thomas Hardin (May 26, 1916 – September 8, 1999), known professionally as Moondog, was an American composer, musician, performer, music theoretician, poet and inventor of musical instruments. Largely self-taught as a composer, his ...
*
The Music Tapes The Music Tapes is an experimental pop music and performance art project of Elephant 6 member Julian Koster (also of Neutral Milk Hotel). The Music Tapes is characterized by unusual orchestrations (such as singing saw and bowed banjo), the use ...
* Neptune *
Einstürzende Neubauten (, 'Collapsing New Buildings') is a German experimental music group, formed in West Berlin in 1980. The group is currently composed of founding members Blixa Bargeld (lead vocals; guitar; keyboard) and N.U. Unruh ( custom-made instruments; p ...
* Bob Ostertag – homemade real-time sound sourcing system used on '' Getting a Head'' (1980) *
Hans Reichel Hans Reichel (10 May 1949 – 22 November 2011) was a German improvisational guitarist, experimental luthier, inventor, and type designer. Career Reichel was born in Hagen, Germany. He began to teach himself violin at age seven, playing in the ...
* Senyawa *
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum Sleepytime Gorilla Museum (often abbreviated to SGM) was an American experimental rock band, formed in 1999 in Oakland, California. The band fused classical, industrial, and art-rock themes throughout their music. They were known to perform elabo ...
* That 1 Guy * Thomas Truax * Uakti * Franco Venturini


Organisations

Logos Foundation The Logos Foundation is a professional artistic organisation founded in 1968. It focuses on the promotion of new musics and audio related arts by means of new music production, concerts, performances, composition, technological research projects ...
,
STEIM STEIM (STudio for Electro Instrumental Music) was a center for research and development of new musical instruments in the electronic performing arts, located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Beginning in the 1970's, STEIM became known as a pioneering cen ...
, Sonoscopia (Porto) and iii (The Hague) are organisations that focus on the development of new instruments. Besides producing instruments themselves, these organisations also run active artist-in-residence programs and invite artists for developing new art works, workshops, and presentations. Yearly the Guthman Instrument Competition takes place at
Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...
.


See also

* Amplified cactus * Experimental luthier *
NIME New Interfaces for Musical Expression, also known as NIME, is an international conference dedicated to scientific research on the development of new technologies and their role in musical expression and artistic performance. History The confer ...


Publications

*
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 ...
(EMI) was a periodical published by
Bart Hopkin Bart Hopkin is a builder of experimental musical instruments 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 Mu ...
, a leader in 20th-century experimental music design and construction. Though no longer in print, back issues are still available. * Proceedings of the
International Computer Music Conference The International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) is a yearly international conference for computer music researchers and composers. It is the annual conference of the International Computer Music Association (ICMA). History In 1986, the Inst ...
(ICMC) * Proceedings of the New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) conference


References


Further reading

* Applebaum, Mark.
Progress Report: The State of the Art after Sixteen Years of Designing and Playing Electroacoustic Sound-Sculptures
” ''eContact! 12.3 – Instrument—Interface'' (June 2010). Montréal: CEC. * Cathy, van Eck. ''Between Air and Electricity. Microphones and Loudspeakers as Musical Instruments.'' New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. . * *Leonardson, Eric.
The Springboard: The Joy of Piezo Disk Pickups for Amplified Coil Springs
” ''eContact! 10.3 – Symposium Électroacoustique de Toronto 2007 Toronto Electroacoustic Symposium'' (May 2008). Montréal: CEC. * Landman, Yuri
From Rusollo till Present
a history about the art of experimental musical instruments, June 2019


External links


oddmusic
a website dedicated to unique, odd, ethnic, experimental and unusual musical instruments and resources.
Noisejunk
an extensive list of experimental musical instrument links
EMI

NIME community page


a picture gallery of unusual instruments

of articles on Psychevanhetvolk about experimental instruments
Plastic Sound
an exhibit of musical instruments made of PVC pipe

the keyolin. {{Music technology Outsider music Articles containing video clips