Daxophone

The Daxophone was invented by Hans Reichel, and is a musical instrument of the friction idiophone category. It consists of a thin wooden blade fixed in a wooden block, which holds one or more contact microphones, and is usually mounted on a tripod. Most often, it is played by bowing the free end, but it can also be struck or plucked, which propagates sound in the same way a ruler halfway off a table does.

These vibrations then continue to the wooden-block bass, which are then amplified by the contact mics. A wide range of voice-like timbres can be produced, depending on the shape of the instrument, the type of wood, where it is bowed, and where along its length it is stopped with a separate block of wood called the "Dax". One side of the Dax is fretted to produce fixed pitches, while the other side is a smooth curve, to play more fluid pitch changes.
The sounds that come from the Daxophone are often very unexpected and and sometimes very comical sounding.

Giant Tuba

The Giant Tuba, was made in the early 20th century by Besson, London. The Giant Tuba has over 34 feet of tubing, weighs 112 pounds, and is nearly 8 feet tall.
The lowest playable note on this open valve instrument is the Bb three octaves below middle C, or the second lowest note on a modern piano (29.14 Hz).
This giant tuba was a London music business landmark for much of the 20th century. It was originally fitted to the wall of the Besson & Co. factory in 198 Euston Road as a shop sign.
The Tuba plays like an open valved instrument as the valves do not move.  It was an outside display piece for the main Boosey & Hawkes Shop in the Edgware Road until 1948 when it moved to the B&H Factory in Edgware, North London.

Freenotes instruments

Most musical instruments are difficult to play well, requiring years of study and practice. This leaves most people on the sidelines musically. But it need not be this way.

Freenotes instruments are carefully designed to unlock an individual's innate creative potential. Freenotes allow the universal language of music to be expressed more by feeling and intuition than hours of disciplined practice. There are no wrong notes with Freenotes Gamelan inspired instruments.Freenotes instruments are the creations of Richard Cooke.

A few custom designed Freenotes instruments and sound sculptures.

Former Guitars

The former guitars have two strings which share tension through a "head" that pivots under the control of a long whammy arm. This configuration causes one string to tighten as the other is loosened, creating a tonal center.

The difference of the strings at rest (equal tension) is an octave, because of the string diameter.
The Former Guitars also have a movable bridge that acts as a big fret for "hammer-on" and other techniques more specific to the instrument.

Pickups are mounted under both ends of the string, allowing for multiple independant string segments. The range of the string tension is two to three octaves. The movable bridge futher divides the string into intervals.

  

Designed by Robb Stewart, the Fluba is owned by musician Jim Self, who is also a tubist (tuba player). His idea was to have a tuba sized flugel horn, so Robb designed it and made it from parts. The valve section and "guts" are from a Yamaha Eb "compensating" tuba. Robb cut the slides for an F instrument. He used a small F tuba bell about the size of a Yamaha 621 and made the other branches.
The design is like a huge antique flugel horn. It has some beautiful bends and bows and little personal touches--they show that Robb is a great artist and instrument maker. It sounds like something between an F tuba and a cimbasso. The sound is directionally forward and is very mellow sounding. It is a little brighter than a tuba and a little darker than a contra-bass trumpet.

Fire Organ

Created by Nathan Stodola for his mechanical engineering senior project at Union College, the fire organ is a musical instrument that uses the laws of thermoacoustics to create the oscillations in the air we hear as sound. Like traditional organs, the pyrophone ("flame sound") has one pipe for each playable note, activated by a piano keyboard.

However, the sound in this instrument is produced by a temperature difference imposed across a stack of closely packed channels.
The hot temperature is maintained by propane flames and the other end of the stack is kept cold by running liquid nitrogen through a heat exchanger.

Boasting a range of 14 notes, the organ is one of the only instruments in existence that uses heat to create a tone.

The fiddle-dee-doo

It's a globu-tubular horn, with a goatskin resonator. The tubular section of the horn is the neck and fingerboard of the fiddle, and the goatskin membrane on the globular section is the soundboard of the fiddle. It can have one or two gut strings. The blow hole for the horn is on the back of the globular section.
While it can be played as a globular horn or as a fiddle, it's most interesting when the two systems interact. For example, when blowing into the globular horn, the strings of the fiddle vibrate sympathetically.

Created by Barry Hall of Burnt Earth.