This is part of a series on Life Is Music that explores the nuances of various instruments, their origins and the unique quality they bring to creating music.
While most musicians swear by traditional musical instruments like the table or the sitar, several artistes today do not shy away from experimenting with unique sounds. Modern technology and human innovation has made it possible to craft several such instruments that produce distinctive and one-of-a-kind sounds.
Here’s a list of the strangest, most innovative modern-day musical instruments, that may have already made it to songs on your playlist without you realising all the hard work that went into crafting the instrument. Prepare to be blown away by the musical genius of instruments like the Hang, Array Mbira, Sharpsichord, Zeusaphone and Gameleste.
Hang
This one is a newbie is the world of Percussion. It was developed by a Swiss couple, Felix Rohner and Sabina Schärer in 2000. The instrument is constructed from two half-shells of deep drawn, a nitride steel sheet and glued together at the rim to leave a hollow UFO-shaped Drum. The hang belongs to the idiophone family of instruments, which means it doesn’t use string or membranes to generate sound; instead, it counts on vibrating sound waves that travel through the entire body of the instrument. The sound is melodic and subtle, think of a muffled bell. It has a central note on the top called a ding and seven to eight tone circles. Small tone circles or dents create high notes, while large dents produce low notes. It follows the same principle as short strings and long ones do on a Piano.
Watch: Daniel Waples plays the Hang Drum in a subway
Array Mbira
California-based Bill Wesley created the Array Mbira taking inspiration from an ancient African instrument called Mbira. In Africa, a class of musical instruments that features metal spikes positioned to be played by griping the metal protrusions is common. The instruments were not very well-known outside the area and foreigners who did discover it often referred to them as thumb Pianos. A scientist by profession, Wesley’s design, which he started working on in the ‘60s, uses the Array system of note arrangement and hence it adds a prefix to the instrument’s name. The instrument produces a Xylophone-like sound and has gained popularity in the last decade with artistes such as Sting and Imogen Heap using it in their compositions.
Listen to the instrument here:
You can read the complete article about innovative instruments here
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