Wood and sound: using marimbas in a "slöjd" club.

On Tuesday I gave a talk to a group of "slöjd" consultants who are amongst other things responsible for setting up "slöjd" clubs for children all around the country. "Slöjd" is Swedish style craft, a special way of working with material. The building where I have my workshop was where they developed a teaching method for this a century ago. This method became well known in other parts of the world and people travelled long distances to attend the summer courses. They still hold lots of different courses here but they are more general interest, not aimed at teachers as such. 

One of the 5 principals of the modern "slöjd" clubs is that they should aim to be multi-cultural. In other words one can find inspiration from unexpected sources (e.g. from the african violin-maker down the corridor), from other countries and other disciplines of the arts (e.g. music, story-telling) and incorperate them into the children's creativity. 

So that is the background to the little workshop I did. Contact me if you'd like a copy of the notes that I made. They include a bit of theory, a long list of questions that a instrument maker might ask themselves when choosing suitable wood, a few pictures and some links to relevant video clips on you-tube. Below is the little resonance box that I used as an example, made out of a birch tree that we felled in the early spring.

Kiddie violins, the German "free-method" vs. Cremonese inner form

For once I don't have seven or eight basses in the workshop so I'm taking advantage of the lull to brush up my violin-making skills. Axel will soon need a 1/4 size violin, so that's what I'm busy with. The last violin I made took 5 years, but this one is going a lot quicker.

I'm using the German method of fixing the ribs, that we were taught at school - did my exam in Markneukirchen - as opposed to the conventional Cremonese method using an inner form, not because it's better but because I didn't want to spend time making a form for a one-off instrument. In this method the form of the back is finished and then the ribs are bent to fit. The corner blocks are fitted last. It's quite a lot harder to get the same even result as when form is used, but it useful when experimenting with different shaped/sized instruments.

Here is an inner form that I've made for a double bass. It is after a John Lott bass that belongs to the Gothenburg Symphony, which I've had the privilege of having in the workshop.

I've got this far today. Axel told me that he would like a black violin with a heart shaped scroll. Why not? I'd already rough cut the scroll, but was inspired by a heart shaped "cheerio" that we found in Axel's breakfast cereal on Valentine's day to make a hole that you can peep through. It's still just roughly formed now. I'll do a close-up when it's finished.

Kora

I'm going to build a Kora (a lute/harp from west Africa with about 22 strings). It's going to be a very challenging project since it is so exotic in these parts but I'm just going to go ahead and try and learn as much as I can in process.

A calabash with my name on it. At least my initial, which I take to be a very good sign, although it won't be visible once I've fastened the skin on it.

Skins from Senegal. I got an extra one so that I can make a little drum too, one day.

What I've been working on today: a graph of string length against pitch, so that I can plan how to build the neck.
If you watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrEPm04v9Mk&feature=related you might understand why I want to do this.

A visit to the National Swedish Handicraft Council

Upstairs in our house is the West Götaland Regional Office of the National Swedish Handicraft Council, which is a fancy name for bunch of very lovely people who help out with all manner of exciting handwork projects. Their offices are filled with colourful creations and it is very inspiring to go up there. For some reason that doesn't happen too often for me but today I needed a little advice on my next project. They showed me a Sami drum made from a reindeer skin and a tool used for preparing the hide. http://www.hemslojd.se/

Inventing a new instrument

25 November:

Developments on this project

So we added a marimba key and a bridge to see what would happen. The string here is tuned to an E an octave higher on the shorter side than the longer side and the marimba key is tuned to the same pitch (the higher E). The result - a warmer tone, definitely, compared to when the note is played while the marimba key is dampened, but the difference isn't big enough to get me doing flick flacks across the ceiling or anything like that. Next step is to see what happens with a good microphone. There is also another idea of making a movable bridge that zooms up and down the string changing the pitch. This project is on pause at the moment while Tormod concentrates on more pressing work. 

14 october:

This is what happens when you have a composer and an instrument maker working in the same house.

It is the first prototype of a new kind of string instrument for an upcoming composition. It's very simply the longest, deepest double bass string strung up to explore the deeper vibrations, frequencies which Tormod, my violin playing composer colleague feels have been missing from his life. Quite understandable, that. We started it yesterday afternoon and strung it up today, in time for a grant application that should be in tomorrow.

It has no resonance body as such at the moment. The idea, inspired by the architecture of the wooden buildings here at Nääs, is to eventually use something very big, like floors and walls to amplify the sound. Until then it'll be electrical. What is interesting for me is that this design allows considerable freedom to explore the accoustical properties of bass strings. One experiment I want to try is to replace the traditional resonating body of a double bass with a resonating bar - a marimba key tuned to the same pitch as the forcing frequecy of the string. The string will pass its vibrations to the marimba key via a sound post/ bridge hybrid. Marimba keys are struck, strings can be struck, plucked or bowed but I'm not aware of the two ever having been combined, so I'm very curious. I'm also interested in placing a bridge at different points along the string, something that traditional instruments just don't allow for. And we'll have to see what Tormod has got up his sleeve - so watch (and listen to) this space.