A tribute to small futile projects and general random thinking

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

"door-chime" guitar

i made one of these and they sound great.
-do you remember those chimes that your grandma would have on here kitchen door? A little hollowed out box with three or four strings and little hammers that would bang against them when the door was closed?

-well, we can do this with a guitar. you just need to make a "bridge" of sorts that hangs the little hammers (wooden balls attached to string) over the strings.
-you designate one ball to each string, hanging them in a sort of triangle pattern so they don't run into each other.
-it is better if you have a sort of clamp system up too, so that you can change the length of the string so that they fit right over the strings.
-the result will be, that when you play strings/strum chords on the guitar, the balls over each string will bounce off at different paces creating the same effect that the door chime would have. something that sounds very unique and pleasant with the guitar.

diagrams/photos to follow.

complication: the problem with my prototype was that the strings tended to get tangled really bad, sommer suggested fishing-line instead perhaps.