Elemental Design

Some One of a Kind Musical Instruments

These are some of the custom and experimental instruments I've created. A few are available for sale, while most were made with specific destinations. Any of these instruments could be duplicated to some extent.
These represent just some of the possibilities in the materials I use.

Rockadinda Slate keys on a hollowed burl. See Stone Instruments for sounds.	Glass Tongue Drum Nice mellow tone. The lower notes ring slightly better than the upper ones. This design is experimental and still evolving.
Chromatic Wrenchaphone Marimba-like set up with wrenches. Nice, bright tone.	River Drum Two 3' glass keys inside a wood resonating chamber tuned to set up a beat frequency. Very soft, deep and resonant.
Fountain Glass keys with a maple base. The two sides of this instrument are tuned slightly apart from each other so when played simultaneously it sets up a beat frequency that's tuned to ones Theta brain waves.	Mother Drum Moose-hide skin on a 3' wide hollowed pine log. The odd shape makes possible several "tonal centers", giving it a wide spectrum of sounds. Incredibly powerful drum.
Monkey Gong This guy usually hangs by his ears. Has a rough resonant sound (wouldn't you if you hung by your ears most of the time?).	Original Whale Drum One of many musical experiments I first tried out on family in the form of Christmas presents. Both the tails and heads may be struck for a very deep, resonant sound.
All Glass Bass Tongue Drum A musical experiment structurally, tonally, and using liquids between laminated glass. It worked out on most levels. Has a deep, resonant sound and has held up structurally so far.	Glass Hammered Dulcimer The gentle resonant sound of glass seemed to me to lend itself to the musical style of the hammered dulcimer. I make these to order.
Miriam's Aquarion A birthday present for my former wife. The base is from a rotted out walnut tree. The dark keys are for beat frequencies.	Pipetreck  The sound of the pipes transfers to and is amplified by the tank ends.
Coin Drop Aquarion Made for a magician in California, this adds some glass music to the old "coin trick". He drops the magically produced coins into the instrument for a pentatonic "waterfall" of tones. The act ends with a large cascade of coins. The sides are clear plexiglass, but I left the brown wrapper on for protection during shipping.	Wa Wa Marimba I just supplied the keys for this one, but it's a neat design. The keys are alternating mahogany and aluminum. There's a sliding bar which can open or close the tops of the resonator tubes for differing sound effect.
Almost All Glass pegged Aquarion This customer wanted a pegged instrument with a clear base. I can't peg into glass sides, but I can cheat and use Acrylic.	Glass Bowed Psaltry Strings aren't in my regular line of instruments, but someone wanted one so I made it. The sides and pin block are acrylic. The rest is glass, including a glass"liner" for the acrylic sides.
Redwood Amadinda The keys are made from reclaimed redwood. The tone isn't as nice as the regular spruce Amadindas, but it's decent. This is tuned to a more authentic Ugandan tuning.	Catherine's Bridge This was inspired by and made for a friend. The middle keys are mirror glass and all beats. The end pairs are also beats. The curved sides are black locust, the ends tiger maple and cherry. I loved playing this the week or so it lived at my house.

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