Thing-a-day.com

Continuing to explore the variable tension theme from yesterday: the rotten stick tension guitar uses a hand lever to stretch the string and thus set the pitch. I had that bit of coconut leftover from the banjo, so I used it as a sound radiator. The walnut on the other end is for comfort when you prop the guitar up against your belly (the recommended playing posture).

It sounds kind of like this.

I thought I’d try changing the pitch of a guitar string by pulling it with a solenoid - thus “tension guitar.” I thought I’d be able to get multiple pitches by turning the puller on and off very quickly (PWM) but that didn’t work well, so I was stuck with just two pitches. That was boring, so I added a little finger that frets the string. With the combination of the two, it can play four pitches. Over and over and over, thanks to the automatic strummer. Like this. There’s also video of the various moving parts here.

Details of the strummer, finger, and puller.

I added a fingerboard to the rotten stick electric guitar for easier fingering– it’s still only long enough to play about 5 notes. And I made the worst bow ever from another rotten stick and some waxed string. Together, they sound like this.

For today’s thing-a-day: a damp, rotten stick from the park; an old guitar string; a hand-wound electromagnetic pickup.

It sounds like this. (Sorry, I’ve only had a few minutes to start learning how to play it)