How to Design a Musical Instrument

the valves on a horn

There are multiple ways to design a musical instrument. Listed below is the overview of basic knowledge one needs to design any aesthetically pleasing musical instrument.

Instructions

1. Draw a blueprint of whatever type of musical instrument you are planning to design. Take apart, or critically dissect, a similar instrument to ensure full, comprehensive understanding of how to map out a musical apparatus.

2. To design a musical instrument, one needs to be able to decipher various musical sound perceptions, such as the timbre and overtones, attack and decay and directional effects. In addition to this, acoustic principles like oscillation and resonance, damping and radiation, modes of vibration, nodes and antinodes, phase relationships, and impedance, transmission and radiation need to be considered.

3. Consider tuning systems and pitch layouts, gesturing and ergonomics. Secure the above before moving on the the next step.

4. Install any parts of the instrument that causes irregular vibration patterns. Idiophones include free bar instruments, rods that are fixed at one end, tuning forks, bells, cymbals and gongs, saws and wobbleboards.

5. Construct percussion parts if your musical instrument is a beater, with scrapers or friction makers to be played with mallets or sticks.

6. If you'd like your wind instrument to excite vibrations (make them more dramatic); utilize air columns, chambers and pitch control, as well as plosive aerophones, sirens, and outer aerophones, now's the time to install these parts.

7. Devise a way to handle tuning, mounting and positioning of any materials such as drumheads and drum bodies if you are designing a percussion instrument.

8. Design a system for vibration and scaling, tensioning, bridges, pitch control, length and tension, and unorthodoxies for chordophones (string instruments).

Tips & Warnings

• Remember to acquire the designated tools per instrument, and that tuning is necessary per musical apparatus. Basic hardware and home improvement tools are necessary for most musical instrument constructions.

References

• Overview of Musical Instrument Designing
• Anatomy of a Musical Instrument
• Example of a Homemade Guitar Blueprint

Resources

• Musical Instrument Design: Practical Information for Instrument Makers