Category Archives: Instruments

I love Kora’s. They look amazing and sound amazing. I didn’t have a massive Gourd or any hide so i had to settle with a coffee can… It’s played with dark piece of wood between your knees with the copper pipe on your lap to keep it in place with one hand on each sideContinue reading “12 String Coffee Can Kora”

Ektara‘s normally have a cane of bamboo split in two with a soundbox at the base and a tuning peg at the top. The bamboo is pressed together to change the pitch of the string… I’ve changed things a bit… I chopped a length of fresh bamboo at two nodes, making a closed cylindrical bitContinue reading “The 1-Stringed presplit Bamboo-cane Ektara?”

Antique Cork Tipped Cigarette box turned into a mini 6 string Dulcimer with handmade Bamboo hammers. pictures by my lovely wife.            

I had 5 minutes free at lunch today, so knocked up a Bamboo Koudi. I’m not that skilled at wind instruments (yet!) so only managed two pitches, but considering how simple it was to make i think i might experiment with it some more!

I decided to steal the prongs off of a Mbira for my acoustic monster, so there was a perfectly nice coconut shell body just waiting to be used. An hour or so later after some tinkering I present to you the 3 Stringed Coconut Shell Balalaika! http://www.divshare.com/flash/playlist?myId=11414740-e45  

For my Minimonium project i had to get some springs… this left me with a large surplus of springs.

An Erhu is a 2 stringed chinese violin of sorts, traditionally made with snake skin and a hexagonal wooden sound box made from nice wood… I’ve used a Baked Bean tin, some picture frame hooks and a piece of scrap wood i found at work. I’ve piezo’d it up for good measure too.  

This one’s a weird combination between a westernised Kora harp design and a Cloche (those domed food covers used by waiters etc.) It was a prototype and knocked together pretty quickly but the end result i’m pretty happy with! the bowl resonates and hums pretty nicely, you can even do a few singing bowl techniquesContinue reading “Cloche Harp”