Harps on Strings And Tines

Salad Bowl Lyre

Sat, 20 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I got this idea from YouTube after being mesmerized by Tobias Kaye’s Sounding Bowl videos on YouTube. I just had to make one. It’s a simple project, just needed to find the right bowl. This particular bowl comes from Granville VT via my local Goodwill. I bought a set of 16 Lyre strings from Amazon but only used 12 of them, tuned as follows: E5 D5 C5 B4 A4 G4 F4 E4 D4 C4 B3 A3. The final product sounds fine but a bit thin in my opinion, but you tell me…

Coconut and Driftwood Harp

Sun, 01 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This one is more of a shelf piece than an actual instrument to play. I got the coconut and wood scraps while walking on the beach in Melbourne, FL and packed them in my suitcase so I could make an instrument out of them. The coconut cracked as I was putting it together from the tension, so they have just enough tension to look good.

The finished product

H. Upmann Cigar Box Lyre

Sun, 01 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I got this box in a small cigar shop in the Miami airport. It is made entirely of wood, and is pretty solid. The bridge is made from flooring, and is made from a very hard wood whose name I forget. I got some Lyre strings and zither pins to make this instrument. I added a piezo under the bridge, so you can play it through an amp. The inserts that came with the box were in the turquoise color, so I used it to make a jack plate.

Domaine du Père Caboche Wine Crate Harp

Thu, 15 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This instrument has gone through a few iterations. Initially I wanted to make a harp-like instrument with a bridge in the middle, so two people could play it at the same time, one on each end. The first version of this instrument ended up like that, but the sound wasn’t very good. This was because the strings were not long enough on either end to make a good sound. I ended up moving the bridge slightly towards one end and trying it that way. This made a better sound. I used Chinese guzheng strings on this first version, but it turned out they were not great quality and a few snapped.