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This instrument is designed for exploring the sounds of short, rigid spring-steel bands mounted as lamellaphone tines and scraped with threaded rods or other ridged scrapers. The pitch varies according to where along its length the tine is being scraped. Because it is almost impossible for the player to scrape steadily at a precise location along the tine, the pitch tends to be constantly in flux. Yet the tine’s fundamental tone does come though at times, most often when the scraper lifts and leaves the tine free to vibrate on its own. Those fundamental notes are tuned to a pentatonic scale, providing some tonal grounding to music that otherwise is all over the place, pitch-wise. This instrument is one of those that has its own peculiar voice, not well suited to producing any other sort of music than that to which it is naturally inclined. Magnetic pickups help to bring out the characteristic sounds of the metal tines.