il nuovo barocco

A student composer at my college built himself an instrument. It's made of a piano's pin-block. Attached are a curved bridge, six piano strings of different thicknesses running vertically, with pickups. Underneath and across from these six strings are twenty brass harpsichord strings, attached to a contact mic. These operate as sympathetic strings to the six main ones, which are bowed. The whole instrument is plugged into an amp. Because there's no fingerboard, you can only get harmonics, but you can play sul ponticello and pizzicato, and get all sorts of cool effects. From the audience, it sounded like there was a contingent of string and brass players onstage.

Discuss.

Wow! Do you have any recordings? :laugh:

I never know what to think of new instruments. I've seen some kooky ones. This sounds pretty cool, I suppose.

Why don't I get excited about this stuff? Nothing new excites me.

I should be able to get a recording, yeah.

http://inersouster.blogspot.com/

Best. Blog. Ever.