Instrument de Musique
There would seem to be two patents Russolo took out which are accessible on the web. The instrument de Musique looks to be very straight forward to make from the text and plans.
Here's the first stage of the instrument I have built. The sound holes on the resonant box are my embellishment.
In the patent Russolo talks about the purpose of the invention.
'...
is to create a musical instrument allowing the use of
those longitudinal vibrations that are produced by the length ways
application of a surface to a musical string. Notably, each musical
string is made of a metallic thread wound into a spiral and tightened
between two specific points above an appropriate resonant box. The
aforementioned string is able to be struck, either by hand or stroked
mechanically and tangentially by means of a loop and as seen in the
diagram of the loop'.
So the next stage for me will be to build the conveyor belt. I do wonder if this instrument was ever built as the spring can't be tensioned as Russolo describes and I'm not sure if the suggested conveyor belt mechanism will create any desired sounds but I will try. At this stage I'm also unsure of what material to use for the belt. I'm quite intrigue by the Russolo's description of the instrument 'being softly and continually struck: for example, with a hand gloved in cellophane'. This may be a clue.
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| Working on the conveyor belt mechanism |
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| Using a stepper motor drive belt. The ribs make an interesting sound |
The conveyor belt is an interesting mechanism. Again I wonder if it was used in any of the big floor standing intonarumori where the lever is pushed down?
Hmmm...... having motorized the belt I now wonder if the sounds it produces were worth the effort, making me further question whether the instrument was ever made.
As you can hear the electric motor drowns out any sound the spring might make. Putting a contact piezo on the spring might help here. Getting the conveyor belt to run properly was a test of my mechanical design capabilities. Here's a photo of the belt tensioning pulley I had to add.
Hi Martyn
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the blog - I had always been fascinated by these and used to wonder what they might sound like
It's exciting that you found those patents. I'm also confused by the tensioning system on that spring - it looks like an autoharp/piano peg is being used, but a particularly robust one, as that looks like quite a thick spring. Would a banjo tuner do it maybe? I guess you can test if it's worth putting in by manually tensioning the spring.
I feel like the belt material is supposed to create something fairly gentle, but it's hard to know how much friction you'll need to make the spring decently audible! Is a violin bow with rosin enough to excite it or does it need something stronger like sandpaper?
Nice f holes!
Harry
I'm a little underwhelmed by the sound at the moment but am still working on different strings and disc coatings. Rosin does improve the sound on the wooded discs.
DeleteAs for the tensioning system, I too can't see how it can be done, springs just don't tension the same as a guitar string.
I'm starting work on the belt mechanism next week. Bashing it about as Russolo describes in the patent produces some interesting sounds, especially when different areas of the instrument are miked up using piezo contact mikes. A lot of sound art with springs seem to have already been done. A translation of the patent is here on my google drive should you be interested.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6u1grI0MYrXcFV4V2JpVG1sdm8/view?usp=sharing
The above link doesn't work please try here.
Deletehttps://docs.google.com/document/d/0B6u1grI0MYrXcFV4V2JpVG1sdm8/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=110900723619519494106&resourcekey=0-SZyQoKyQkSIT_jk3IqMNYg&rtpof=true&sd=true