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READIN
READIN started out as a place for me
to keep track of what I am reading, and to learn (slowly, slowly)
how to design a web site.
There has been some mission drift
here and there, but in general that's still what it is. Some of
the main things I write about here are
reading books,
listening to (and playing) music, and
watching the movies. Also I write about the
work I do with my hands and with my head; and of course about bringing up Sylvia.
The site is a bit of a work in progress. New features will come on-line now and then; and you will occasionally get error messages in place of the blog, for the forseeable future. Cut me some slack, I'm just doing it for fun! And if you see an error message you think I should know about, please drop me a line. READIN source code is PHP and CSS, and available on request, in case you want to see how it works.
See my reading list for what I'm interested in this year.
READIN has been visited approximately 236,737 times since October, 2007.
Over the course of building the tin-can cello, I've searched around a few times for precursors [1, 2]. I've been a bit surprised at how few examples of an instrument with a metal soundboard I've been able to find! Here are some projects I've had in mind recently:
The tin-can cello. This is the project most of my blogging has been about recently, a cello with a washtub body, with the base of the tub as soundboard.
A 4-stringed viola da gamba sort of instrument with a wok (bronze) as its soundboard and an arched maple back, and steel strings. I'm not really sure yet of what the scale length will be or what gauge of strings I'll be using. I'm thinking the strings will be tuned to E, A, D, G but I don't know in what octave.
A banjo-style instrument with a cymbal as its soundboard.
A violin made from pounded-out sheet metal (with a wooden neck/scroll/fingerboard). If bronze can be found in sheet form and is strong enough, I'd like to use it. Otherwise steel. [Looks like sheet bronze, brass, and steel can be had from onlinemetals.com]
A (high-tin) bronze urn or vase or bowl (singing bowl?) or bucket, fitted with a wooden neck and bridge, and strings.
An erhu with a coffee can resonator.
A violin (or soprano violin?) with a cookie tin resonator.
A contrabass with a bell as its resonating chamber.
I've nearly learned first position well enough to play the lead for "Drinkin Wine (spo-dee-oh-dee)"! Was able to make my way through it with a little confusion, it will sound great in the near future...
posted evening of November 8th, 2018: Respond ➳ More posts about The Blues
I had my first cello lesson today. Teacher was intrigued in the cello and interested in helping me with technique. Said it would be a challenge as a lot of his teaching techniques are specific to cello geometry, which differs in key ways from that of the tin-can cello.
Advice for left hand is learning first position, with scales and Suzuki tunes. Thumb position is key, the thumb should be in back of the neck or even on the outside of the neck. Right hand, my fingers should cradle the frog. The angle of bow hair to string is different than when playing violin, the bow hair is facing the floor, so angled away from you. (These two bits of advice are by themselves worth the cost of the lesson.) We tried playing Humorèsque together. Vibrato was mentioned.
