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Building an Aeolian Harp Pt. 2

After the rather disappointing aural performance of the first aeolian harp prototype, I built a bigger 6' version with tighter string spacing. Sound bridges for each string are now cut out of square-cross section hardwood pieces rather than the triangular and quarter-circle ones used before, because square sticks are a lot easier to clamp down for sawing in a mitre box. After putting on eight strings, I took the instrument out to Ocean Beach in SF, which is always cold and windy. And to my surprise, this version actually worked. The sound is still very faint, which may be due to a lack of tuning. If tuning does not raise volume significantly, I may mount a surface mic and run it to a battery operated portable amp like the Mashall MS-2.

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 07:36 PM | Comments (0)