moonmilk

sproing!!!

a little oscillator that triggers the box to switch to another chant over and over again.

Du Yun brought me this box from Shanghai, and I opened it up for a minor lobotomy.

I always liked the sounds I got while washing big steel bowls.

Trivia: the musical instrument called the Waterphone does contain water, but is named for its inventor, Richard Waters.

squeaky exercises from the pages of the book "Handmade Electronic Music" by Nic Collins.

This trick was used as far back as the 19th century to synthesize musical tones.  The gears have 24, 27, 30, 32, 36, 40, 45, and 48 teeth, so the notes are all related by simple fractions – that makes this a just intonation scale rather than equal temperament.

There's plans and instructions on thingiverse: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6662

In honor of the start of spring training and in the hope that spring weather will be here soon.

A working violin made from maple and oak craft wood.  The design is all 90 degree angles except the fingerboard.  The tuning pegs are literally square pegs in round holes.

The thing's tuned two half-steps low until it gets used to the tension.

I have never played a violin, so many thanks to Bre Pettis who dusted off his 15-years-neglected fiddling skills to test-drive this violin! (Hey NYC violinists! Want to help test & demo this thing? Contact me.)

I hope to get all the designs uploaded to thingiverse soon – keep an eye on moonmilk.com if you're interested.

Yeah, I like whistles.  This one's made from a brass tube and a wooden dowel from a craft store.  The fipple was cut with a hacksaw, and the finger holes drilled with a drill press.

Someone left a big chunk of gutter drain pipe in the garbage, and a sturdy wooden handle, just for me.

I lasercut some strips of poplar for another project, and found that the waste wood could be plucked like guitar strings.  The strips make pretty good rattles too.

It's just a photodiode, a 9-volt battery, and a little amplifier, but it makes the vibrations in artificial light audible.  A lot of what you hear is derived from 60Hz AC power, but electronic displays have tones of their own.