World on Strings And Tines

Salad Bowl Kora

Sun, 10 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The Kora is a beautiful sounding instrument from West Africa. Traditionally it is made from a large gourd and has 21 strings made from fishing line. I was introduced to this instrument in the late 90’s when I first heard Toumani Diabaté, and never forgot his amazing playing style. I didn’t have access to a large guord, but I do have access to a Goodwill, and they had this wooden salad bowl that I thought would make a good body. The neck came from scrap wood that used to be a picture frame, and the bridge was made from scrap wood. I ended up using 12 strings instead of 21.

Longboard Koto

Sat, 26 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I found this skateboard that someone had thrown away. You could tell from the damage that it had not been moved in quite some time. Instead of letting it rot away, I took it home, cleaned it up a bit, and turned it into this Japanese Koto.

Kotos typically have 21 strings, but there’s not enough room for that many strings on a longboard, so I settled for the highest pitched 10. These 10 strings add so much tension that I had to find some heavy duty brackets to keep the bar holding them down straight. Each string has its own bone bridge that I hand-shaped out of dog chew bones, using a belt sander. The tuning is done via zither pins, and the eye loops directing the strings to the pins are from the 1890’s piano I salvaged (I use these eye loops in quite a few projects documented on this website).

PVC Didgeridoo

Fri, 19 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This one is pretty basic. a long PVC tube with an endcap that has a smaller diameter. I never did get a good sound out of it, since playing the Didgeridoo is hard enough

Testing it out

Berimbau

Sun, 24 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The berimbau is an instrument from Brazil. One day my neighbor had a backyard umbrella that broke in a windstorm, so I grabbed one of the arms to make this instrument. The traditional berimbau string is made with the wire from the inside of a car tire, which keeps the inside hole sturdy against the rim. So imagine my wife’s reaction when I walked in the house one day and said “Honey, let me explain why there’s an old tire in the garage.” After some digging I was able to get the wire out and put together this nice instrument. The resonator is typically a gourd of some kind, but not having access to one, and having a child that was still on formula, I used a formula container instead. Works like a charm. A stick and a rock is all you need once the instrument is put together. The rock is used to create a bridge to change the pitch of the tone, and the stick is used to strike the wire to make the sound.