Just for personal use. I’m a creative person and have lots of time for that, but no money.

So I just use my skills (many of which I aquire by doing exactly that) and build them to my own vision 😇 I wanna play musical instruments, but just buying something isn’t personal enough for me. The DIY route gives me a very unique object in the end.

Doing that isn’t easy tho. I have absolutely no experience with making music or playing instruments, so everything is done by research. For example:

• The strings of the tagelharpa, opposed to for example a violin, consist of up to 30 individual strings each, with the correct ratio of nylon to sewing thread (and I even included a few metal strings on the drone), which need to be twisted to create the characteristic deep dark sound
• Or, the steelpan needs to be tempered very specifically and then tuned by hammering on the note fields. Also very hard to do, and that’s the step I’m currently struggling with 😬

I already built a tagelharpa cello. Sounds great, but I currently have to upgrade the tuning pegs to proper ones because they don’t hold the tone.

And a dulcimer-harp-thing out of my broken washing machine. Works great, but the tuning pegs are impractical and need to be exchanged for better screws. I also wanna try out different string patterns and materials. Has a very heavenly echo!

My rain stick is also almost ready. Only needs a few minutes more of painting. No pic yet.

Currently I’m also building a handpan/ steelpan hybrid. Very WIP

I haven’t had the chance to post them on c/DIY, but will do it once I feel they’re truly finished

There’s an official Eurorack variant available too! Here it is

Sure, you may have a point. Or not, I don’t know, really.

But can we maybe just agree that it looks fancy? You’re literally creating music out of thin air. That’s why it was called “Etherophone” at first, because you touch the ether itself and create harmony ^(or, in my case, weird mosquito noises and sirens...)^

You usually don’t “wave” your arms blindly in the air, you have a defined set of fingering positions and movements. Once you’ve learned them, they’re in muscle memory, just like typing on a touchscreen keyboard instead of a physical one.

You actually have a huge scale range. The octaves are defined by the location of your hand, the notes themselves are by the fingers. It’s supposed to be pretty accurate and makes sense from what I’ve heard?

I couldn’t think of always hitting the exact correct note out of hundreds just by a slider.

If you want something with a slider, theres the Stylophone Theremin

They are just the screw holes. No other use I know of