The StarrBoard is a stringed musical instrument invented by John D. Starrett and patented on July 23, 1985.
It is a tapping instrument similar in concept to 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, ...
except that it is played on a stand (like a keyboard) rather than worn on the body. Another difference is that it is played with fingers parallel to the strings rather than perpendicular. The strings are spaced so that an octave span (13 strings) is the same distance as on a standard piano, 6.5". The
fret
A fret is any of the thin strips of material, usually metal wire, inserted laterally at specific positions along the neck or fretboard of a stringed instrument. Frets usually extend across the full width of the neck. On some historical instrume ...
s of the StarrBoard are spaced at
semitone
A semitone, also called a half step or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically.
It is defined as the interval between two adjacent no ...
intervals, as are those on most fretted instruments. The piano-like note markers on the fretboard reflect a semitone string tuning system, although Starrett experimented with various
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 tw ...
tuning systems over the years. At least eleven StarrBoards were built before Starrett ceased production of the instrument.
[''Experimental Musical Instruments'', "The StarrBoard", Volume VII #1, pages 4-6] Most of the instruments were electric, although at least one was purely acoustic and two had wired frets and strings for electronic processing to provide
MIDI
MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and re ...
output. The StarrBoard is no longer being manufactured, although a derivative instrument called the
harpejji
The harpejji ( ) is an electric stringed musical instrument developed in 2007 by American audio engineer Tim Meeks. It can be described as a cross between a piano and a guitar, or as a cross between an accordion and a pedal steel guitar. The play ...
is being made.
References
External links
* {{webarchive , url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110119174941/http://infohost.nmt.edu/~jstarret/StarrBoard.html , date=2010-01-19T17:49:41 , title=StarrBoard at John Starret's Musical Instruments page
Amplified instruments
Fretboard tapping instruments