Talk:Experimental musical instrument

Custom Made

I find it hard to believe that custom-made instruments are by their very nature, experimental, and thus find the entire premise of this redirection misleading. Clearly, there is drastically more room for experimentation in a custom instrument, but sometimes somebody just wants a left-handed version of a hard-to-find model, or simply an instrument of the highest caliber. I propose a new article.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Beastmouth (talk • contribs)

I agree. An "experimental" musical instrument differs from a factory-made one in concept, not only in detail or in quality. --DiderotWasRight (talk) 23:00, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I guess the article should just be called "Custom-made musical instrument".
RichLow (talk) 18:58, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

1) I added a heading so this section appears below the Contents box. I believe that is the intent. 2) I removed external references [from Kraftwerk] to "self-made" (I felt that was bad translation and explained the change elsewhere) so no intermediate topic redirects to this article presently. This seems to (partly) resolve the problem with custom vs experimental. Walkingstick3 (talk) 19:46, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Better, for sure, but it seems to me that this still does not address the fact that a builder may craft an otherwise perfectly ordinary instrument (say, a guitar), with personalized details (e.g., inlaid monogram or coat-of-arms) or even structural modifications ("left-handed" setup), thus producing a "custom made" but perfectly familiar product. (I cannot regard the recent manufacture of a few left-handed pianos as anything other than "custom made", though in all other respects perfectly ordinary.) Designing an entirely new instrument is quite a different thing, never mind that some people may use this unfortunately ambiguous expression expecting it to be understood in a narrower sense.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:59, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

RfC: Is the term 'third-bridge' original research?

Is the term 'third-bridge' original research? User:YuriLandman has been inserting this term into the article, however, afaik, it does not appear in any published source not authored by User:YuriLandman. Is this OR that should be removed from the article? Dlabtot (talk) 15:59, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

eg, this sentence "One of the first guitarists who began building third bridge instruments was Fred Frith" is supposedly supported by this citation: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:8f87gjer46iv -- which does not actually say anything about "third bridge instruments". These kind of misleading and deceptive citations are unacceptable, imho. Dlabtot (talk) 16:04, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

RFC responses and comments

• I've rephrased the sentence if you have problems looking at it as an 'official term'. The Elgart/Yates book mentions the third bridge technique. YuriLandman (talk) 19:30, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Could you please, on this talk page, quote the passage that uses the term, and give the page number? Thanks in advance. Dlabtot (talk) 01:08, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah I now see what you mean. The link is put in incorrect. Frith used an instrument with a locked 3rd bridge in the middle, I saw this before on wiki, but it has been deleted. I can't find it on internet anymore, sorry. It must be in some of his cd-booklet I suppose. The only thing I can find is that he used homemade instrument, but I can't find an explanation of how it looks like. The Elgart/Yates only mentions the technique, not the words 3rd bridge. page 4 by pinning it between a string and the nut, fretboard, soundboard or saddle of the guitar. If you have a better word than extra bridge, please replace it. I don't know how to call it else.YuriLandman (talk) 08:26, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the issue is simply one of phrasing. "A third-bridge instrument" (in particular when written with the hyphen) makes this sound like a technical term, but in fact what is meant is only "an instrument that has a third bridge." Since "bridge" is a well-established term in common use when talking about instruments, I see no problem with the latter phrase. DiderotWasRight (talk) 23:02, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

If an instrument really is notable, shouldn't we describe it in the same terms as were used in the reliable source we're citing? Dlabtot (talk) 05:25, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Rubbing teeth

See Talk:Vocal_percussion#Rubbing teeth. Jidanni (talk) 23:12, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

History not historical

People have been building experimental musical instruments for as long as there have been musical instruments. Some experimental instruments have become mainstream : e.g., the pneumatic organ; the piano; the Chapman stick; the saxophone. Others either came and went, or remained forever on the fringes, such as the saxhorns; 18th century glass harmonica; the 19th century xenorphica. This article gives the impression that the phenomenon is unique to the 20th century and later. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.249 (talk) 01:10, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

It might be argued (as you seem to be doing) that all instruments were experimental at one point or another. Accepting this view, however, would amount to changing this article's title to just "Musical instrument". It seems to me that there is a distinction, though to be sure the 20th century does not have a monopoly on such things. I don't think that "came and went" is a sufficient criterion, however, or we would have to include the harpsichord, aulos, and other "historical" instruments, never mind that they held sway for hundreds or even thousands of years before being supplanted by newer "experiments".—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:27, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I wasn't proposing "came and went" as a criterion, merely observing that some experiments panned out better than others.

I don't think you can ignore the fact that there were a lot of experimental instruments that preceded the 20th century. In my experience (and I taught a university level class called "Experimental Music" for a decade), "experimental" is generally defined as involving some significant departure from the mainstream at the time the instrument was first designed/realized.

It is not whether a particular 'instrument has "caught on" which defines it as experimental or not experimental, so much as whether the concept behind the instrument has become commonplace or mainstream.

For example, although I pointed out that the piano was an experimental instrument at one point in time, the concept of a keyboard instrument which strikes tuned strings with hammers rapidly became a well-established part the musical mainstream. So I wouldn't consider most of the hundreds of variants of piano that were tried in the 19th century to be "experimental" instruments in the sense of this article. If, however, someone were to design a keyboard instrument that fired ping-pong balls and gummy worms at tuned strings to produce the sounds, that would fit into the category of "experimental."

To take another example: the Chapman stick was an experimental musical instrument because the concept of tapping on the strings of a fretted instrument as the primary means of producing sounds wasn't a common part of the musical mainstream (even though a few people had used the technique before that). But once the Chapman stick became known, the Warr guitar couldn't be considered "experimental" because it didn't really break any new conceptual ground.

So no, I wouldn't consider every musical instrument an experimental musical instrument just because at some point in time it's "new". But I think there is a valid case for to be made for considering instruments which broke significant new ground prior to the 20th century to be considered here. Some examples would be those I already listed. Together with a few more they would probably suffice to dispel the impression of experimental instruments as an exclusively 20th-21st century phenomenon:

* pneumatic organ (10th-12th c)

* guitar (14th c)

* viola oganista (15th c)

* piano (late 17th c)

* glass [h]armonica (18th c)

* melodikon (late 18th/early 19th c)

* harmonica (19th c)

* pyrophone (19th c)

* saxophone (19th c)

* xenorphica (19th c)

* steel drums (steel pans) (mid 20th c)

* Chapman stick (20th c)

With a little work I could come up with a lot more; these are just off the top of my head.

At least some other Wikipedians apparently agree with me. The article on the viola organista, an instrument designed by Leonardo da Vinci, and built in various forms on and off for more than 400 years, appears in the Wiki "Experimental Musical Instruments" category; I didn't put it there. Same for the pyrophone.

On the other hand, there are instruments in that category that I would seriously question being there at all. The "tromboon", for example, is a PDQ Bach/Peter Schickele one-off that's nothing more than a bassoon bocal stuck into a trombone. And the Theramin and Ondes martenot, while experimental by my definition, certainly haven't been experimental since the 1930s; the Theremin, in particular, has been around in a DIY kit form for at least 30 years.

So... if people aren't happy letting other centuries in here -- ie., the true history of experimental instruments -- then I submit that the article requires a new definition for "experimental", as it is being used in the article -- one which clearly limits the category to 20th century and later experiments, and it should appear near the top of the article. If no one else wants to attempt this, I can probably do it. But I think that a truly encyclopedic article would use the broader view. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.249 (talk) 02:35, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

(Applause) Well argued. Of course, there is still the problem of the way the term "experimental instrument" is commonly used, as opposed to the way that you argue (so persuasively) that it should be used.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:50, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids?

Is there a link for that claim, or is it just common knowledge? edit: I'm guessing whoever put that in there was referring to Herbie Hancock who did the title sequence on the show. Unless we have evidence that he used it in that theme song, or it was used anywhere else throughout the show, perhaps it would better to simply list Hancock as an artist? I'm going to be bold and do it, but I have another question: do we have sources that actually prove the people in the "Artists" section are actually users of the"custom" instruments in the article? Alt lys er svunnet hen (talk) 21:45, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

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