RATTLETINE 3

I’ve made several lamellaphones in which the sound of the tines is altered by the addition of rattles on the tines (see, for instance, Cat’s Face and Rumba Boxes). Here’s another variation on that idea, with its own unique sound. In this one, the tines are long-ish bands of spring steel, ranging from 8½” – 17”, with rattles in the form of screws with loose washers set through holes drilled the ends of the tines. At this length, the fundamental vibration is subsonic — in fact, it’s slow enough in the longest ones to be heard not as tone, but as a rapid rhythm — and the tone one hears is a mix of higher partials in the tines. Among those partials definite pitches can be recognized, and the tines are tuned accordingly, but because of the several competing partials the pitch sense is a bit ambiguous. The sustain from a single tine-pluck is quite long, at up to 30 seconds or more.

In the audio clip, Rattletine 3 is joined by Spomo-lo.