SQUIGGLY & SINUOUS

Several Indian instruments such as sitar and tamboura have bridges designed to produce a very refined sort of shiftingly harmonic buzzing as the string sustains. The Kenyan instrument called obokano likewise has an intentionally buzzing bridging configuration. I’ve been interested in the less refined manifestations, and I’ve found that the most interesting effects come about with very long strings. I’d love to make a buzzing-bridge instrument with insanely long strings. Short of that, you can see here my entry into this field, with strings about seven feet long. It has four strings, played with a slide. My preferred slide is a 1.5” wide aluminum bar, which allows additional coloration effects depending on how the flat surface of the bar rests against the strings.

In the sound clip, Squiggly & Sinuous is joined by percussion. In the second half, a small wooden saxophone enters.