Strings II

Here is a two string banjo, made with a plastic milk bottle. One string can be fingered to produce the melody while the other serves as the drone.

Now here's a two string bass, featuring a plastic storage container and two bass strings.

This instrument is a three string cigar box guitar. Sometimes you can do very well with just three strings. If you use a two by four piece of scrap wood for the neck, six strings are pretty cumbersome. Cigar box guitars are excellent for blues music. Some successful recording artists began their careers with cigar box guitars they made, rather than the expensive, manufactured instruments. 

 Here are two videos, featuring two ukeleles. In the first one, I demonstrate a store-bought instrument. In the second, I show a ukelele I made from scratch, using an ice cream container, a piece of lumber, several toothpicks, posterboard, four machine head tuners and a set of ukelele strings.

Dulcimers are American folk instruments, commonly played by people of the Appalachian mountain region. . Some dulcimers are shaped like tear drops, with eleaborate scroll work. My version has a simple rectangular box shape. A simple dulcimer may consist of a board with a nut and bridge, along with a single string and tuner. A sound box (aka resonator or "Helmholtz generator") can be added to amplify the sound. Some dulcimers have two to five strings. One string serves as the drone while the others are used for the melody. Three or four melody strings allow the player to play chords, as well as single notes.

Zithers are instruments with a number of strings: as few as six and as many as twelve or more. Zithers feature sound boxes, bridges and nuts. The English psaltery, the Hungarian cymbalom and the Japanese koto are examples of zithers.My zither is made from a cigar box, wood dowel, screw eyes and nylon fishing twine. Unfortunately, this arrangement often lets the strings go out of tune. Screw eyes do not remain firmly in place when inserted into cardboard or thin wood. Zither pins, if available, are definitely a better option. 

Finally, there is the harp. My attempt at harps are definitely experimental. The ones I have certainly do not sound like the professional variety. Mine are made from pieces of lumber, along with cardboard, nails, guitar machine head tuners and nylon fishing line. The strings invariably go out of tune. This sort of instrument might be useful for cartoon sound effects, if anything.