Take your creations beyond the workshop and onto the stage with diy music instruments! Let us show you how these creations range from simple, basic setups that produce beautiful sounds to more complex projects that require a greater level of engineering knowledge. With these tutorials and examples, we’ll guide you on this journey to make your own musical instrument for experimental, artistic or everyday use – so whether you’re starting out new or a seasoned sound creator, come explore the wonderful world of making your own music.
The performance art group Quimera Rosa has created devices that allow performers to play one another like musical instruments. They use these musical inventions to explore the cybernetic relationships between human bodies and technology. As stated on their website, “We are specially interested in the articulations between art, science, and technology, and their function in the […]
The echoing sounds of a mad pianist banging out the theme to Harry Potter drew me to find the source. Hidden behind a crowd of bedazzled onlookers a piano plays its music. This is the work of Ramon Yvarra, and his piano. Once a standard player piano, this musical anachronism has been retrofitted with brains […]
For most people, playing drums is all about perfecting the skill of actually playing. In Tom Featherstone’s case, however, he decided to learn how to actually build them as well. Featherstone got his start with the “technical side” of drums by first taking apart his 10-year-old electronic drum kit to replace sensors. Once he started recording […]
It doesn’t get much better than the world renowned DJ Qbert scratching insanely fast, except when every scratch is not just expressed as sound, but also sparks off of a tesla coil. That’s exactly what took place during Maker Faire Bay Area when DJ Qbert took to the stage to close the event. Turntables are […]
During Wednesday’s closing talk at San Francisco’s MakerCon, members of Thud Rumble demonstrated a suite of digital DJ tools developed in collaboration with Intel and their Edison platform. Thud Rumble co-founder Ritchie “YogaFrog” Desuasido preceded the demo with a talk about the evolution of DJ technology from record crates, to laptops, and his vision for […]
If you’ve seen any episode of South Park past season nine, you probably recall the catchy, goofy theme song. What you might not know is that Primus frontman Les Claypool not only composed those funky sounds, but popularized the easy-to-build instrument on which he performs the song. The Whamola (a mix between a whammy bar […]
The shofar is an ancient instrument made from a ram’s horn, used in Jewish religious ceremonies. The video below shows not so much the process of making the instrument itself, but the process of making the decorative metal covering that goes on the top. The results of this process, seen above, are quite impressive, and […]
