August 15, 2005
Building an Aeolian Harp Pt. 1
As a last-minute Burning Man project, I decided to build an Aeolian Harp - a string instrument played by the wind. I'm following the short design description from "Amy Queen of Toyes" found here on Dennis Havlena's site, which has a plans for a many DIY instruments. Uli Wahl in Germany also has a ton of information on aeolian and kite instruments online.
The basic idea is a follows: Take a 6' long 4" diameter ABS plumbing tube. Run strings lengthwise all around the perimeter of the tube. Tune strings to one of the resonant frequencies of the tube. Put in a windy spot and listen...
Here is my shopping list from Home Depot - total cost is ~$40.
- 4" diameter ABS tubing - (10' section for $15)
- 3/16" x 2" Eye bolts w/ nuts - one pair per string to hold string on one end and tuning bolt on the other end ($13.50 for 32)
- 1/4" x 4" Eye bolts - one per string for tuning ($5 for 16)
- 1/4" wing nuts and spacers
- Elmer's glue-all ($2)
- 3ft hardwood stick to cut sound bridges. ($1)
- 60lbs tested nylon monofilament fishing line leader ($1.99 at Sportsmart)
I built a first prototype from a 2' section of tube - no big difficulties in putting everything together, but not much sound yet, either. You can hear a faint whistling when swinging the thing around in a silent room, but that's about it. While continuing to play around with the tuning, I've also started to build a bigger 6' version.
Posted by Bjoern Hartmann at August 15, 2005 7:36 PM