Quarter Tone Bouzouki

Here's an interesting video of a bouzouki with some extra frets to get some of the notes "between the notes".

Tuning Box Demo

Microtonal musicians often lament the lack of support our art form receives from the companies that make electronic instruments. Some expensive keyboards offer retuning abilities. Even then, these capabilities are usually limited and impractical for more exotic tuning experiments. For example, they usually don't allow for keyboard mappings that are different from the normal twelve notes per octave.

The TBX tuning box from H-Pi Instruments provides a revolutionary solution to this problem. It allows you to change the tuning of standard MIDI keyboards in a very flexible manner. Check out the following video. It's a lot of fun to watch the improvisations in fifteen different tunings.

Tuning Box Demo

Revelation for Piano

Here is Michael Harrison performing his innovative "revelation tuning", a form of just intonation that makes use of small tuning differences that are generally avoided in other types of purely tuned music.

Revelation for Piano (Michael Harrison)

See also Michael Harrison's website.

Microtonal Marimba (Quartertones)

I'm always excited when I discover a new microtonal instrument. I just came across this video of a fascinating quartertone marimba (twenty four equally spaced tones to the octave instead of twelve).

Quarter Tone Marimba

See also Quartertone Marimba.com for more videos and information about this project.

Microtonal Ukulele

Here's a great video of a young musician playing a ukulele tuned to thirteen tone equal temperament. This is often thought of as a dissonant and unpleasant tuning, but I think he makes it sound wonderful.

Thirteen Tone Uke

Nose Music

It's marvelous that a simple piece of plastic can employ the nose to produce a continuous microtonal range of pitches. The infamous nose whistle (sometimes called a nose flute) owes its success to using the nose as a source of wind, freeing the mouth to serve as a flexible resonating chamber that can adjust to produce the required notes. If that sounds confusing, this video should help clear things up.

Nose Whistle Demonstration

Other kinds of nose flutes are used throughout the world, as shown in the following video.

Vietnamese Nose Flutes

It should be pointed out that the nose has other musical uses besides the mere blowing of air. Notice the subtle and delicate use of the nose as a temporary substitute for the fingers while they are employed elsewhere.

Shnozzage (Etude # 23 by David Rakowski)

Unusual Microtonal Instruments, Part 5

Bells often work very well with microtonal tunings. Many of the instruments we are familiar with (pianos, violins, guitars, most wind and brass instruments, etc.) have a harmonic spectrum that tends to work best with more traditional tunings. They can also work well with some very exotic or dissonant tunings, but the inharmonic spectrum of bells often provides a better match. I am fascinated by bells and the possibilities they represent.

As an example, Tony Salinas performs on a microtonal bellophone that uses a tuning of 96 equally spaced tones to the octave. The conic bells that are used can be arranged in various ways.

Here is a picture of a single conic bell.

Of course, this is all very interesting, but you probably want to know how it sounds and see it in action. Click here to see a video demonstration. The bellophone has already been used in concert and I hope to hear more about in the future.

Well, this concludes the first batch of unusual microtonal instruments that I wanted to share with you. I hope you enjoyed reviewing just some of the fascinating approaches to exploring pitch with instruments. This series will take a break for a while, but I hope to discuss more microtonal instruments in the future, including some of my own.

See also:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Unusual Microtonal Instruments, Part 4

So far, we have examined a large variety of microtonal instruments. We have yet to discuss the keyboard and its role in producing microtonal music. In some ways the piano style keyboard is the victim of its own success. Its twelve keys per octave arrangement has become so common that many have forgotten that there are other alternatives, but imagine what you could do with this alternative keyboard controller from H-Pi Instruments.

Tonal Plexus

This keyboard features an impressive 211 keys per octave. I can't imagine a situation where this wouldn't be sufficient. This same company also sells the Tuning Box, the world's first microtonal midi converter. You can use it to retune electronic keyboards or software synthesizers. It can store over 500 tunings. This is a great idea. This could save a person a lot of time and money shopping for equipment with microtonal capabilities.

If this all sounds new and unusual, you might enjoy visiting their instrument galleries that feature a long history of keyboards capable of playing more than 12 notes per octave. For example, here is a modern reconstruction of a sixteenth century harpsichord that has 36 keys per octave split between two manuals.

Archicembalo

Here is a 31 tone to the octave pipe organ.

Fokker organ

Here is a closeup of a 22 tone just intonation harpsichord keyboard with unusual split keys.

Just Intonation harpsichord

See also:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 5

Unusual Microtonal Instruments, Part 3

I have already discussed several microtonal guitars in this series. This next guitar is one of the most unusual. Dave Keenan is the inventor of the Choob, a tubular (choobular?) electric guitar.

Microtonal Choob

This picture is of the first microtonal choob. It has eight strings and is tuned to a seven limit schismatic temperament. One of the chief advantages of this design appears to be the ease with which you can setup a microtonal fret layout or even change it if you aren't satisfied. The frets are monofilament that are threaded through drilled holes. You can drill new holes if you want to change the fret layout.

The use of a light weight tube requires some wet sand for ballast and an internal truss wire system to counteract the tension of the strings. There are also plans to include a neon tube to light up the frets at night.

It looks like the curved fretboard would make it difficult to play, but the reports I've heard indicate that it's much easier than it looks. The curved design also makes it possible to use a bow. I don't really need a microtonal guitar at the moment, but if I ever decide to get one, I will definitely consider this new design.

Another recently invented microtonal instrument is the udderbot. The invention of the instrument was a collaborative effort that took place in the vicinity of Jacob Barton. I don't know much about it since it's new and the web site is still under construction. I could describe it, but I thought it might be more fun for you to try to guess its general appearance based on the name, udderbot. You can then check the website for pictures and further information.

The udderbot was used at the 17 tone piano project, phase 3. Recordings of the concert are archived here.

See also:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 4
Part 5

Unusual Microtonal Instruments, Part 2

Neil Haverstick is a well known guitarist whose compositions include explorations of exotic microtonal realms. He uses a large variety of microtonal guitars including 19, 31 and 34 tone equal temperaments and fretless guitars tuned to the harmonic series. Here is a collection of his 34 tone guitars. Notice how close the frets are to each other.

You can visit him at his website or My Space page. You may also enjoy visiting microtones.com for more information on microtonal guitars.

Dante Rosati uses a just intonation guitar, a harmonic guitar and a very unusual prime guitar that uses ratios of purely tuned prime numbers up to 199. You can also hear some of his music at his Zebox page.

Doctor Oakroot plays a rough edged type of blues on homemade guitar-like instruments. Some of the instruments are based on Pythagorean tuning and one uses 17 tone equal temperament. Here's a video of him playing a homemade guitar.

Doctor Oakroot-Snake in the Grass

If you are interested in making homemade instruments, you might like to read his article on how to make a diddley bow (a cool, but simple, instrument with microtonal capabilities).

See also:
Part 1
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Unusual Microtonal Instruments, Part 1

A few weeks ago, I received a surprising email. It was from a TV show in Britain. I was asked if I would be willing to be consulted about an upcoming segment on unusual musical instruments. Apparently, a researcher discovered my ancient instrument blog through an Internet search and concluded that I was some sort of expert on the subject. (I'm just an amateur collector and connoisseur of musical instruments.)

I replied that I would be delighted to share whatever knowledge I had. I then waited to be contacted. I began to think about some of my favorite unusual instruments like the bazantar, stalacpipe organ, sarrusophone, LEGO harpsichord and even the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra.

I thought I should also do some more research on instruments that are specifically designed to make microtonal music. Of course, many unusual instruments are microtonal, but this isn't always intentional. I posted a request for assistance at a few microtonal music groups. I received a good number of emails describing some great instruments, many of which I wasn't familiar with. I never was contacted again by the TV show, but I am pleased to offer these microtonal instruments some modest publicity here.

Kraig Grady is a well known microtonal composer who has found it necessary to make his own microtonal instruments.

His Lake Aloe is a vibraphone-like instrument that is tuned to a type of extended just intonation. It has a dreamy otherworldly sound. You have to hear it. See this page for an mp3 sample and for more detailed information on his instruments and tunings.

There are several varieties of microtonal guitars. The following picture compares the fret layout of a normal guitar with a guitar that uses Lucytuning, a tuning system based on pi.

This fret layout allows for slightly different tunings of sharp and flat notes. See this site for more information on Lucytuning.

Ethan Tripp, the author of one of my favorite blogs, Of Sound Mind frequently chronicles sonic experiments that sometimes involves homemade instruments.

This instrument is loosely modeled on a Thai phin. It also represents the beginnings of his microtonal explorations. The frets are made from "zip-ties". This simple, but elegant, solution allows him to easily move the frets and thereby change the tuning. This project is described here.

See also:
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5