Jaw Harps

On the very same trip where he brought back the Cambodian Khloy, my friend also found the legendary vietnamese jaw harp, or Ken La in the local language. Made with brass, this might be the stradivarius of the jaw harp world, producing a sound so loud that it doesn't really need to be put into one's mouth to be audible.

I put this Ken La head to head against the local (for me, local means Sundanese) jaw harp, known as Karinding, which is made from bambo. I recorded both with the same setting, but I have to play the ken la slightly further from the mic as it drives my mic of the scale on this setting. Of course, bamboo produces a much sweeter sound, and it is much safer to put into one's mouth! However, in the jaw harp world (which is a very quiet instrument), loudness is everything, so a lot of player are willing to risk their tongue and lips to play the metal jaw harp.

Listen to the Karinding here:
Karinding.mp3

and to the Ken La:
Ken La.mp3

The craftmanship is quite extraordinary fur such a simple instrument, and it comes with a very nice, decorated carrying case. You can see from the 1st picture the side by side comparison of the vietnamese Ken La and the Indonesian (Sundanese) Karinding, with 100 Rupiah and US Quarter for scale. The 2nd picture shows the brass tongue of the Ken La.

Cambodian Khloy

A friend of mine did a trip around South East Asia, and found this cute little flute in Cambodia. The Khloy, as how locals called it, is a recorder-type instrument. It is curious that the construction of flageolet is fundamentally the same with the European counterpart, with a block of wood inserted into the tube (as opposed to the leaf-ring construction found in Indonesia).

The bamboo itself is very small, with very thin wall. In fact the bore is the smallest among my collection. It has 7 finger holes, but the last one does not seem to give much effect to the pitch. The sound is very bright, but not as piercing as one would expect from such a small flute.

It is decorated with pyrography technique. The pyrography is quite coarse, to be honest, but it does gives the required aura for this traditional instrument. But the most interesting part of this piece is the casing it comes with, as you can see from the picture.

I don't know any Cambodian music, but the flute apparently gives certain kinds of music naturally. Although equiped with flageolet, it allows some flexibility to the emboucure, unlike the rigid European recorder. And it takes some experiments to produce its best sound. Here is the recording of the Khloy, without any prior knowledge of the music it was made for. Enjoy.

Khloy.mp3

From Toraja With Love

This is a flute specimen I obtained from Tana Toraja, Sulawesi. It looks like an ordinary bamboo traverse flute with 6 fingerholes, but with very nice and colorful finishing touch. The bamboo itself is very thin,thus producing its particular sound. I'm not sure how it is supposed to be played, but I think this traditional Toraja melody is always good on any flute. Listen to its sound here.

Toraja Flute.mp3

Sea-urchin-o-phone

This is an instrument I created last year, made from a sea urchin shell. I applied thick internal lacquer to the shell as naturally, the sea urchin shell is very porous and not suitable for a wind instrument. After sealing the pores completely, I shaped the embouchure hole, and drill 4 finger holes in it following John Taylor's ocarina design.

With this scheme, the instrument, pitched in concert C, is capable of producing 1 fully chromatic octave. However, with the open, flute style embouchure hole (as opposed to the flageolet ocarina style embouchure hole), lipping technique can bring the low notes of this instrument all the way to G below the treble staff.

Sound sample is here:

Seaurchinophone.mp3

H P Lovecraft

It has been a while since the last update on this blog. The 2nd half of the year has always been a very busy time for musicians. For me, I have been through some recitals of my works, a major annual concert of St Laurentius Chamber Orchestra, an ABRSM exam, Yamaha exam, another experimental instrument, and off course, many "entertainment" performance, music arranging, and loads of teaching.

In the middle of this crazy schedule, my movie-director friend, Marqy requires a score for an adaptation of a story by H.P. Lovecraft, The Horror at Redhook. It is basicaly a rambling story about a demonic cult that exists in our time (or Lovecraft's time to be exact). He renamed Redhook as Pasir Merah for the Indonesian adaptation, but I haven't read the script yet. So I turn on the mic and record some sounds after reading the original story, and here is the result:

Pasir Merah.mp3 (Size 1.46Mb)

The Flutarina

Behold, a new generation of wind instrument has arrived! Well, it is my original design, the flutarina, a flute - ocarina hybrid. It's made of bamboo, which is a traditional material for flutes. It also has the flute embouchure hole. But the embouchure hole is located right in middle of the instrument, making the acoustic closer to ocarinas than flutes.

Unlike standard ocarinas, the hole placement counts. Finger hole further away from the embouchure hole produces lower pitch. But
unlike flutes, the hole size plays more important role than location.

This instrument has 9 finger holes, 2 of which are the natural hole formed by bamboo ends, operated by thumbs. It is pitched in Eb, with a range of approximately from middle C up to Bb (nearly 2 octaves). Just like ocarinas, overblowing doesn't work on this instrument.

It features internal lacquer (white colored), embouchure hole and finger holes inlays, bamboo-tree carving, and a matte-lacquer finish. I haven't figure out all of the fingerings yet, but I believe full chromatic should be possible. Because it is basically a stopped pipe, its length is about half of that required for a flute with the same pitch. May I call it the eco-flute?

Another nice thing about it is its extreme ability to pitch bend. And the thumb-operated end-holes can serve as a special effect device simillar with the koudi (The koudi is a very very short flute with no fingerhole used to imitate bird songs).

How about the sound? Well, you be the judge. Listen to the sound here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?vdemmtztxxy

Trumpet Multiphonics

I figured that using a funny embouchure and fine control, it is possible to play multiphonics on the trumpet, especially in the high register. The sound is unstable and not very musical, just like any other wind instrument multiphonics. But I guess a good composer out there might find a good use for this unique voice, and a good player might figure out how to do it reliably.

Listen to it here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?w0gmzz4jymm

If you don't get it, it is the vibrating sound between the two notes. It is unstable as it easily drops into either one of the more stable tones. But when everything is correct, the funny vibration comes. I know it sounds weird because of the funny embouchure involved, but it is an ordinary Bb trumpet, a Constellation, not a clarinet or some weird custom-made instrument. And, No! It doesn't involve playing while singing the 2nd note.