Bowed keyboard- Streichklavier #7: at the fall music festival in Ironton MO

I didn’t get completely done, but took it to the festival anyway. Friday night I had it working pretty good about midnight, but as I was getting ready to put it away for the night- I heard a popping noise every time the belt made a full circle. I knew what that meant… time for a new belt. I cut the old one off and spliced a new one on. I use gorilla glue and clamp the splice between waxed paper. this time I used maple blocks and two clamps so I could really crank down on it. Sat morning it looked good, but I didn’t really have time to get it broke in properly (rosin worked into fibers) I took it town and set it up- It was starting to work, but the 45 degree temps really started working on the rosin. It lost it’s “grab” and began slipping on the drive pulley when you engaged a key.

I kept it at the festival for about 3 hours, then gave up and took it to the house. After I catch up on a few things- going to try and tweak it some more- I’m going to move the keyboard, and add a second keyboard and hardware to pluck the strings in addition to bowing them. I hate that this is taking so long, but this has really been time consuming, and I can only work on it for so long as it pushes the limits with family and work. Just aren’t enough hours in the day. Hopefully before long I can post it as a FINISHED project with sound samples.

-- Jon