christmas on infinite earths

I didn’t have many good ideas for a third project following my time traveling escapades, all I had was a list of things I was interested in:

Clearly I needed help.  Sandy thought the idea of taking a small, handheld instrument like a thumb piano into something huge and unwieldy had merit, and I was able to visualize something, so I went with that idea.  I started thinking of what would make large enough tines for my super sized instrument, and I instantly thought: Leaf Springs.

Now the instrument I was trying to copy looks like this. You pluck the tines, they vibrate and cause the sound chamber to resonate and amplify the sound, and you hear music. The length of the tine determines its note. This was basically what I wanted to build: a large frame with a bridge to hold the individual leaves of an automotive leaf spring, which could then be adjusted for tuning and struck with hammers to make them vibrate a large attached sound chamber. I succeeded in building the bridge and most of the frame:

It only has the shortest 4 of the 8 springs attached, but it already has an impressive span. I wanted to call it “Optimus Prime Rib.” It is dramatic looking and that bridge took a long time to figure out and properly execute, but there’s one problem: it won’t make any music. The springs don’t vibrate properly when clamped down solid, they just are too thick and dense. At that point, I made an accidental discovery: by holding the spring loosely in the exact middle and then striking it, the entire spring can be made to vibrate, like a harmonic note played on a guitar string. The realization was both really exciting and totally devastating, as I had just discovered how to make them ring and it was the exact opposite of what i had built my framework to do. So I disassembled everything, went back to basics and began making a frame I could balance the springs on.

Once this proved successful, I went out and bought one more set of springs (bringing the total up to 13) as well as the plywood needed to build the resonating chamber.

Plus, a set of mallets wrapped in leather to get just the right sound!

The result is an interesting bell like sound. I don’t know anything about this type of instrument, whether I have technically built a type of xylophone or celeste or whether these just are some bizarre type of bell. I attempted to find out which note each spring makes, but my poor tuning ear combined with a confused digital chromatic tuner resulted in a confusing mess. In the end I just put the springs on in order by size, which is not necessarily by pitch since thickness of the metal determines the pitch as well. The “music” I was able to make would best be classified as experimental; it’s loud, it resonates, and it defies any kind of scale or tuning system. I understand that with a grinder or cutting torch I could tune it more precisely, but for now I’ll leave it.

For the presentation in class I simply made a lot of noise and tried to play some neat patterns, but today I reorganized the notes and tried to figure something out. It’s messy, but I hope you enjoy it: