#Single stringed instrument full

A primary goal of the project was to be able to cover at least one octave, which was initially difficult with the limited length change and tension change that the har drive's read/write head is able to achieve. With the hard drive securely screwed onto the now-Multichord body, and the spring and string attached, it was time to begin tuning the instrument. Therefore, I disassembled a computer hard drive and mounted it on the end of the instrument in place of one anchor, leaving the other end as an adjustable tuning peg.īecause the steel string used in the original Monochord seemed far too hard for the hard drive to pull, it was replaced with a 20-lb monofilament thread, and a spring was attached to the hard drive head to counter the pull of the string. Based on my knowledge of stringed instruments, I knew that changing the length of the resonant string or adjusting its tension both cause a change in the fundamental frequency produced when the string is plucked. Therefore, I wanted to create an instrument that could electronically change the note that would be produced without changing the timbre of the instrument. However, I was displeased with the fretting process a finger on the string would severely dampen the sound fom the open string, and even a piece of metal used to fret changed the timbre significantly. The base of the Multichord was a previous project called the Monochord, a purely-acoustic instrument with a single tensioned string and pencil markings for fretting to play an entire octave. The Multichord project took about a month to complete, although in total in only cost about twenty to thirty hours of work.

Photos, Videos, DetailsĬlick on any of the thumbnails below for the full-sized image In the end, the Multichord was tuned to a C-major scale (no flats or sharps) running from A at 220Hz through (but not including) A at 440Hz.

#Single stringed instrument full

Careful adjustment was made to the tension of both the string and the spring with the hard drive head in a neutral, unpowered position to ensure a bipolar application of voltage within the safety ratings of the hard drive's coil could cause the string to cover a full musical octave. The Multichord achieves this by attaching a hard drive read/write head assembly between the resonant string and a tensioning spring to adjust the tension of the instrument's string. It was the culmination of a project to build an acoustic instrument capable of playing multiple notes without fretting or manual, time-consuming retuning. The Multichord musical instrument is an acoustic stringed instrument with a single string, constructed from wood, a hard drive, 20-lb monofilament, and assorted electronic components.