Experimental luthiers are luthiers who take part in alternative stringed instrument manufacturing (such as the guitar or violin) or create original string instruments altogether.

Plucked instruments

In the

experimental rock Experimental rock, also called avant-rock, is a subgenre of rock music that pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments with the basic elements of the genre. Artists aim to liberate and innovate, with ...

and

free jazz Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians duri ...

scenes, some guitarists modified their instruments in the manner of John Cage's

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 ...

Keith Rowe Keith may refer to: People and fictional characters * Keith (given name), includes a list of people and fictional characters * Keith (surname) * Keith (singer), American singer James Keefer (born 1949) * Baron Keith, a line of Scottish barons ...

and Fred Frith became known for playing these

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 ...

s. The latter also crafted experimental table string instruments. In the early 1980s,

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 ...

started building his own electric string instruments, called "mallet guitars," based on the harmonic canons of

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 ...

. Around the same time,

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 ...

built several 3rd bridge guitars before he invented his

daxophone The daxophone, invented by Hans Reichel, is an electric wooden experimental musical instrument of the friction idiophones category. Etymology The ''dax'' in ''daxophone'' is derived from the German word ''Dachs'', meaning "badger" and refer ...

, which he is known for. Bradford Reed developed his

Pencilina 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 ...

in the mid-1980s. The

Whamola The Whamola is a bass instrument used in funk-jazz styles of music. The name is a portmanteau of whammy bar and viola. The Whamola is a direct descendant of the washtub bass, an American folk instrument popular with skiffle and jug bands, and f ...

, based on the

Washtub bass The washtub bass, or gutbucket, is a stringed instrument used in American folk music that uses a metal washtub as a resonator. Although it is possible for a washtub bass to have four or more strings and tuning pegs, traditional washtub basses hav ...

, was developed in the nineties and became famous largely because it was used by

Les Claypool Leslie Edward Claypool (born September 29, 1963) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, filmmaker, and author. He is best known as the founder, lead singer, bassist, primary songwriter, and only continuous member of the ro ...

. In recent years, multiscale or fanned frets guitars and basses have started to emerge, as manufactured by Novax Guitars, Ormsby Guitars, and others. These instruments are supposed to offer an advantage over the classical fixed-scale guitars and basses by providing more freedom in setting the tension of each string at the design and manufacturing phases. This may produce a more uniform tension of the strings, and timbre and tonal characteristics differing from the usual fixed-scale instruments. In the 1980s, 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 Linda Manzer (born July 2, 1952) is a Canadian master luthier renowned for her archtop, flat top, and harp guitars. Career Manzer was a folk singer in high school and played guitar. Her career began when she wanted a dulcimer, but she couldn't ...

, 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 ...

. The

Gittler guitar A Gittler Guitar is an experimental designed guitar created by Allan Gittler (1928–2002). Gittler felt that sentimental design references to acoustic guitars are unnecessary in an electronically amplified guitar, and designed his instrument wit ...

is an experimental designed guitar created by Allan Gittler (1928–2003), who proposed that "sentimental" design references to acoustic guitars are unnecessary in an electronically amplified guitar, and designed his instrument with the objective of reducing the electric guitar to the most minimal functional form possible. He made 60

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 ...

s in New York from the mid-1970s to early 1980s. 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. In 2006,

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 his

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 ...

for the band Liars and afterward made a large series of alternative string instruments, such as the Moonlander for Sonic Youth's

Lee Ranaldo Lee Mark Ranaldo (born February 3, 1956) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, guitarist, writer, visual artist and record producer, best known as a co-founder of the alternative rock band Sonic Youth (guitar and vocals). In 2004, ''Rolling ...

, the

Springtime Springtime may refer to: * Spring (season), one of the four temperate seasons Film and television * ''Springtime'' (1920 film), an American silent comedy starring Oliver Hardy * ''Springtime'' (1929 film), a ''Silly Symphonies'' animated Disney ...

for

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) ...

, and the Tafelberg drum guitar for

The Dodos The Dodos are an American indie rock band consisting of Meric Long and Logan Kroeber. History The Dodos began playing music together in 2005, when musician Meric Long, who had been gigging steadily in San Francisco as a solo singer-songwriter, ...

and others.

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 ...

made a few string instruments of which one is called the "Chu." One of the strings of the Chu carries a large series of small rings and sounds like a snare drum when plucked.

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 ...

builds home made absurd comedic instruments and plays them in their presentations.

Bowed instruments

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 ...

, invented by musician Mark Deutsch, 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. The Japanese multiinstrumentalist and experimental musical instrument builder Yuichi Onoue developed a

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 ...

, similar to a fretless violin but with only two strings, called the kaisatsuko, and 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.

Other

The most well-known example of a multistringed tapped instrument is probably the

Chapman Stick The Chapman Stick is an electric musical instrument devised by Emmett Chapman in the early 1970s. A member of the guitar family, the Chapman Stick usually has ten or twelve individually tuned strings and is used to play bass lines, melody lines ...

, developed in the early 1970s by Emmett Chapman. The

Warr Guitar The Warr Guitar is an American-made touch guitar, a type of instrument that combines both bass and melodic strings on a single fretboard. It is related to the Chapman Stick, another two-handed tapping instrument. The Warr guitar is designed for ...

and the Kelstone (from Belgium) are alternative instruments that also function on the same playing technique; that is, tapping on the strings with both hands. The Chapman Stick is tuned in perfect fourths and perfect fifths.

Gallery

Image:Warr-Guitar-Raptor.jpg,

Image:myprepguitar.jpg, A

Image:20060614_-_claypool_playing_the_whamola.jpg,

playing the

Image:Bowafridgeaphone.jpg, Bowafridgeaphone made by Iner Souster Image:Neptunek.jpg, Neptune (band) with their custom made instruments Image:Moodswinger.jpg,

, 2006

References

External links