Websites about unusual musical instruments and instrument making

21st-Century Instruments: Patrick Ozzard Low’s wide-ranging and insightful study of future possibilities for instruments to play in alternative scale systems

23Five: Organization devoted to public sound art

American Mavericks: Preston Wright, working for Minnesota Public Radio, has created special interactive web pages in connection with Minnesota Pubic Radio’s American Mavericks series. Included among many other features are virtual versions of several of the Harry Partch Instruments (click on an image or use keyboard to activate sounds of different notes; recorded samples and Partch’s own descriptions can be heard as well) and a playable version of the Rhythmicon built by Leon Theremin for Henry Cowell, which plays pitches of the overtone series in rhythms corresponding to their place in the series. http://www.musicmavericks.org/features/

Ganesh Anandan: Canadian/Indian percussionist has been exploring east/west interfaces, including both tuning systems and instrument design. In addition to some innovative percussion techniques and set-ups, Ganesh Anandan has been developing an electric prepared string instrument he calls Shruti Stik. Notice that we have two web sites for him. . http://www.fingerworks.org/exploration.html, http://pluginamp.com/drupal/taxonomy/term/210

Bond Anderson: Bond Anderson, under the name Sound Play, makes outdoor musical instruments, specializing in large-scale site-specific installations, playgrounds and such.

Animusic: Imaginary (but very realisitc-looking) digital images and animbations of acoutsitc-looking instruments, along with the (also digital) sounds they play. Very cool. http://www.animusic.com

Anonymous, aka tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE: autobiographical material from tENT, whose life-as-art activities often involve odd takes on music and music-making mechanisms

Anony Mous, aka James (last name unknown): James makes various sorts of lutes, plucked and bowed, fretted and unfretted, from discarded materials. The resulting instruments are well made, highly refined and elegant. http://www.angelfire.com/folk/inventedinstruments/index.html

Antique Harmonicas: Information & photos on Alan Bate’s wonderful collection of early harmonicas, which were much more diverse and interesting than you might expect. http://www.antiqueharmonicas.com

Apollo’s Axes: commercial site for interesting and unique musical instruments from around the world

Audiorama: French experimental music center and distruibutor of CDs by the group Les Ph�nes.

The Austin Soundscape Project: Peter Struble’s sound playground project and more. http://www.asps.org

Pascal Ayerbe: French multi-instrumentalist. The site is full of images and sounds of wonderful instruments, with text in French. http://www.pascalayerbe.com/

Balloon Bass: a string bass with balloon resonator played by Woodrow Jackson. http://www.balloonbass.com/

Bamboo: website in German on bamboo

Bamboo Instruments Ensemble Performance: Includes slap tubes, flutes drums, xylophone and more in a carefully composed performance. http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=0W-MweXDks0

Bamboo Crafts Discussion Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bamboocrafts

Bambuzal: Bamboo instruments from Carlos Melo in Brazil, including inventive wind instrument, wind chimes, drums, and string instruments with bodies of laminated bamboo wood. http://bambuzal.tripod.com

More bamboo: see also Espino, Martin

Bang a Drum: Online music store carrying a wide variety of percussion instruments form around the world. http://www.bangadrum.com

Gene Bard: Gene’s site has sections devoted to marimba, clavichord, and music boxes, as well as classical guitar. http://www.gpbard.info/music.htm

Bash The Trash Homepage: Ideas and information about instruments from trash, and Bash The Trash’s extensive program for work with children and in schools. Visit their “Instrument Consturction Zone” for children’s instrument making ideas. http://www.bashthetrash.com

Pierre Bastien: Low-tech mechanical instruments, mostly involving creatively re-used standard instruments, from Pierre Bastien, one of the instrument maker/composers that we most admire. http://www.pierrebastien.com

Beebomb: Bill Reed’s beuatiful, whimsical, sculptural musical instruments and other creations. http://www.beebomb.com

Romy Benton: Bamboo woodwinds in all forms and sizes from one of the leading makers. http://www.romyb.com

Johannes Bergmark: The surrealist instrument inventor’s site also includes writings on surrealism and other Bergmarkian topics

Bertoia: Sound sculptures (as well as designs in other areas) by the late, great Harry Bertoia, now complemented bythe work of his son Val Bertoia. http://www.bertoiastudio.com

Daniel Bingamon:Wind instrument maker Daniel Bingamon’s web site contains a variety of interesting and/or useful features, such as a section on biblical instruments, and an instrument builder’s section with a frequency converter and other calculators of use in instrument design and construction. http://www.bingamon.com

Blissful Bamboo Flutes: High quality bamboo flutes handcrafted in North America. http://www.blissfulbambooflutes.com

Michael Bradke: The endlessly creative instrument collector and maker, found-sound and sound-game expert Michael Bradke has recently posted his website in English (auch in Deutsch). www.musikaktion.de

The Brass Globe: Tomas Dobrovolskis, percussionist, has developed this percussion instrument, made from an old brass chemicals container. Http://www.freewebs.com/tomasdob/index.htm

Dennis Brooker: flutes & pennywhistles of PVC. http://www.dbrooker.com/whistles.html

Carousel Music: Music store selling instruments and music publications from around the world. http://www.carousel-music.com

Charlie Blacklock’s “Internet Headquarters for Saw Players”

BOSSA: A bowed electronic instrument consisting of a dodecahedron with a speaker in each face and sensor elements distantly analogous to bowed strings and fingerboard

B. Rad Percussion: Brad Miller’s high tech talking drums with foot-activated pitch change. http://www.b-radpercussion.com.

Jonathan Brandstater: Jonathan’s talks about home-buildable instruments, with an emphasis on homebuildables modeled after the didjeridu. http://www.geocities.com/jonjb2a

Dan Bruner’s musician/experimental builder page: pictures, information, how-to.

Martin Brunsden: home page for musical saw player Martin Brunsden http://www.happymartin.com

Bill and Mary Buchen: Environmental sound sculptors, founders of the organization Sonic Architecture.

Manfred Bleffert: Gongs, glockenspiels, cymbals and other percussion. Manfred will be giving a course in the Santa Rosa, California in the summer of 2008 — check the web site for details. www.manfred-bleffert.net

Bug sounds: recordings of the sounds of many insect species. http://cmave.usda.ufl.edu/~rmankin/soundlibrary.html

Burnt Earth: Ceramic Instruments by Barry Hall. http://www.ninestones.com/burntearth.shtml

Ken Butler: Hybrid Instruments. http://www.mindspring.com/~kbhybrid/

Jan Cardell: Sound sculptures

Fred Carlson’s sympitar: Sympitar and other guitar variations from a wonderfully innovative maker

Gonzalo Cebalos: a wide variety of ethnic and indigenous instruments from this Argentinian maker. http://www.kaypacha.com.ar

Chercheurs de sons: Gerard Nicollet is the author of the experimental instruments book Chercheurs de sons. The website cited here is his blog. Instrument making photographs, comments, ideas, plus notes on CDs, books and other resources in the field. (In French) http://chercheursdesons.hautetfort.com/

Chrysalis Foundation: Composer, instrument maker and theoretician Cris Forster is founder if the Chrysalis Foundation. Cris’s instruments are among the most beautiful and refined you will find in the world today. http://www.Chrysalis-Foundation.org

CIMCIM: The International Committee of Musical Instrument Museums and Collections.

Clatterbox:: The very active and well-put-together website devoted to experimental instrument making in Australia. http://www.clatterbox.net.au/

Clay Woodwinds: Beautiful flutes, ocarinas and sculptural vessel flutes of clay from Robin L. Hodgkinson. http://www.clay-wood-winds.com/

Clayzeness Whistleworks: Flutes and ocarinas of clay.

Cleophone: 12 strings with pickups feeding two stereo leslie speakers; plucked, struck and bowed as well as sounded by a built-in set of ebow-like electromagnetic drivers; often uses rolling steel balls not only hand-held slides, but also rolling on the strings. http://www.doses.com/

Corpus Callosum: This Bay Area Band uses a variety of unconventional and homemade instruments, including musical glasses, daxophone, theremin, musical saw and more. http://www.cannedcorpuscallosum.com/, also sound samples at http://www.myspace.com/corpuscallosumband

Dwin Craig: Dwin Craig’s irreverent personality is in evidence in this site, but of his many DIY sound explorations, just one appears here: a hybrid trumpet-trombone. http://hometown.aol.com/dw1920/myhomepage/resume.html

Dandemutande: Publication devoted to mbira and marimba.

Bryan Day: Impulsive conceptualist; Maker of the rotochand, EM xailfon, bubblefone, crash piano, tapewarp, etcetera. http://www.publiceyesore.com/sistrum.htm

Deagan: Truly one of the most fascinating instrument makers in instrument-making firms of the early 20th century. This site has a bit of history. http://www.wadeculbreath.com/deagan/

Didjbox.com: miniature didjeridoos for sale

Didjeridoo: iDIDJ Australia: Australia’s Didjeridoo Cultural Hub. Didjeridoos from Aboriginal artisans. http://www.ididj.com.au

Didjeridoo again: Mananura Aboriginal Arts is represents aboriginal artisans producing didjeridoos and other aboriginal arts. http://www.didgeridoo-digeridoo-yidaki.com/

Didjeridu making: A list of links to sites with didj-making plans.

Daniel Dietch: Historical woodwinds

Digital Cow: Presenting SKINS, a new, innovative, digital hand drum that combines traditional percussion skills with advanced ergonomics and up-to-date sound manipulations. Designed as a practical performance tool for both percussionists and electronic musicians, the instrument features sensitive playing surfaces, 500 CD quality editable internal sounds, real time sequencing and full MIDI specs enabling intuitive creation of a wide range of rhythmic soundscapes. http://www.digitalcow.net

Digital Needle: Ofer Springer has come up with a system for turning scanned images of vinyl lps into sound files. http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~springer/

Disposable Upright Bass: Chris Badynee tells you how to make one for under $40. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6cTbaBApM4

Dot Matrix Printer Music: Music composed for dot matrix printers. http://slashdot.org/articles/00/06/23/1641216.shtml

Double Ocarinas: Wooden double ocarinas in a range of sizes and pitch ranges from Cynthia Smith of North Country Workshop. http://www.www.doubleocarina.com

Downloadable programs to turn your computer into a hands-on musical instrument, including a mouse-controlled “theremin”, an imitation nature sounds generator, and more.

Judy Dunaway: a minimal site devoted to Judy Dunaway’s balloon music

Drumming Newsletter: This resource for drummers has e-books on making Native American drums and gourd drums. http://highenergydrums.com

Dutch Jew’s Harp Pages: offers newsletter, cd’s, videos, books, booklets, different trumps, links and ordering information for Jew’s Harp

Dymamic Wind Harp: Didier Ferment’s hand-held, human-interactive long-string wind-harp design. http://w1.neuronnexion.fr/dferment/suite1/dynamic_harp.html

The Early Music Shop: well-done and highly resourceful site highlighting the early instruments, strings and accessories available from the Early Music Shop

The early talking machine created by Wolfgang von Kempelen.

Electric Kalimbas: Electric kalimba maker David Bellinger presents his insttruments. http://www.ekalimba.com

Electroharp: an electroacoustic harp, looking much like an orchestra pedal harp, created by Frank Wilhelmsen in Norway. http://home.online.no:80/~franrwil/index.cfm

Ellis Guitars: Look for a beauitful 7-string resonator guitar on this site. http://www.ellisguitars.com/gallery.html

Martin Espino: Scholar of Prehispanic musical instruments of the Americas, specializing in his ancestral M�xico. Martin is performer, bilingual educator, artist and instrument builder (Gourd and Bamboo). He conducts: Solo and Group Concerts, Collaborations, Interactive Performances for all ages and Instrument Building Sessions for all ages. He is a pioneer of what calls “Interactive Performance” and is proud of his Yaqui and Tepehuano indigenous roots. http://www.martinespino.com/

Experimental Instrument Orchestra: Information on Mark Smeltzers band employing bowed strings in various sizes and forms, as well as other instruments, made mostly from throwaways. http://www.myspace.com/experimentalinstrumentorchestra

FlexiFrets: Dwain Wilder of Bear Meaow Folk Instruments, specializing in Appalachian dulcimers, has developed this system of removable frets. http://www.bearmeadow.com/flexifrets

Florian Mulliere: French antique musical instrument specialist.

Flutomat: Pete Kosel’s very easy-to-use tonehole placement calculator. http://www.cwo.com/~ph_kosel/flutomat.html

FretCalc 2.0: Douglas Sparling’s fret spacings calculator program. Naturally, we encourage you to use ExMI’s own fret calculator, but Doug’s program is a very much worth a look as well. It is downloadable, and Doug will be adding a number of improvements as time goes by, so consider checking it out now and then checking again as time goes by.

Ned Evertt’s fretless guitar: commercial site for fretless guitars, accessories and info

Neil Feather: The inimatably odd instruments of Neil Feather. http://www.neilfeather.org

Fellowship of Makers and Researchers of Historical Instruments: Home of FoMRHI, the British quarterly devoted to the craft of historical instruments.

Ferdinand Forsch: stunningly beautiful instruments from the German instrument maker/sound sculptor Ferdinand Forsch. http://www.klanghaus-ff.de

Gerhard Finkenbeiner�s glass harmonicas: The leading current producer of Franklin Glass Harmonicas.

The First Viennese Vegetable Orchestra: As the name says — a site devoted to instruments carved from various table vegetables. http://www.gemueseorchester.org.

The Flageolets sight: early European fipple flutes. http://www.flageolets.com/

The Flock: musical interactive sound sculpture by Kenneth Rinaldo & Mark Grossman

Flute acoustics and some violin acoustics - a set of interlinked sites from the Musical Acoustics Group at the School of Physics, University of New South Wales.

Drelinger Flutes: Introduces the Delinger upright flute.

John Lunn Flutes: John Lunn makes exqusitely crafter, highly decorated orchestral flutes. http://www.lunnflutes.com

Flute-Tech: email discussion group on technical aspects of flute design and construction. To sign up, go to: http://www.onelist.com

Folkstuff: Diverse materials relating to musical instruments from David Shucavage

Found Sound Bahia: Documentary film by David Zucker on the wonderful Brazilian musical group Lactomia, which performs on instruments, and in costumes, made from found objects. http://www.projectfoundsound.com

Ben Franklin & the Armonica: history of the instrument & its maker, provided by Cecilia Brauer

Free Notes: Free Notes is the name that Richard Cooke has given to his wonderful free bar instruments, as featured in several of our ExMI publications. http://www.freenotes.net/

Free Reed Journal: Pages of the Classical Free-Reed , Inc., devoted to free-reed instruments.

Friction Harp: Tom Kaufman has been developing a friction rod instrument — a tuned set of metal rods sounded by stroking with rosined gloves. http://www.tinkertunes.com/music_ed/harp.html

From Scratch: Phil Dadson’s From Scratch group, which performs, teaches and records with large end-struck tubes and other instruments. Photos, sound clips and much more

Jim Gage: Lots of home-buildables including kites, machines and more; many of the machines are musical.

The Galpin Society: British scholarly journal devoted to organology (the study of musical instruments); includes lots of links.

Hugo Gati: Thew maker demonstrates his continuous-pitch, touch-controlled electronic sound device. http://www.youtube.com/user/imesco

Dominique Gauvrit: A wonderful varitety of instruments made from recycled and natural materials. http://perso.wanadoo.fr/dominique.gauvrit

Reed Ghazala: Circuit-bent instruments and other instruments from Reed Ghazala

Gila Mountain Dulcimers: Beautiful traditional Appalachian mountain duclimers and related resources from Kerry Anderson. http://www.GilaMountainDulcimers.com.

Glass Armonica: William Wilde Zeitler’s backgrounder on glass armonica. CDs for sale.

Glass Harp: Glass harpist Brien Engel’s site provides history and technology of musical glasses, as well as information on his own recordings. http://glassharp.org

The Glass Orchestra: Canadian performing group works entirely with instruments of glass. The site includes a glass instruments photo archive.

David Golber Violins: Specialist in Hardanger fiddles. http://www.dgviolins.com/

Kraig Grady: Instruments, scale systems and general culture of the mythical Anaphoria Island

Gravikord: Robert Grawi’s innovative, kora-like string instrument

Electric upright bass: SandeR Huiberts presents a site relating to electric upright fretless basses. http://www.ebass.nl

Ensemble Hope: This group, led by Marc-Antoine Millon, performs with the instruments of the great French instrument makers Francois & Bernard Baschet. http://www.ensemble-hope.com

Guild of American Luthiers: Web site for the leading organization devoted to guitar making and other string instrument making. http://www.luth.org

Guitaround: commercial site for a small, portable electric guitar with built-in amp

Jack Hall: The story, with pictures, of a family of stringed instruments (violin, ukulele, etc.) made entirely of matchsticks by a seaman named Jack Hall, who died at 86 in 1993. http://www.catfish1952.com/MatchstickMan.html ; see also
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Hardanger Fiddle Association of America. Association devoted to the national instrument of Norway, a violin-like instrument with additional sympathetic strings. http://www.hfaa.org/

Harmonic Wind Harps: Beautifully designed and built aeolian harps from Greg Joly, plus information & lore of the aeolian harp. http://www.harmonicwindharps.com

Bret Hart: A great diversity of mostly (but not all) acoustic instruments, including strings, winds and percussion from Bret Hart. http://hartsongs.tripod.com/instrument_garden_page15.htm

Dennis Havlena: Dennis’s page is a treasure chest of articles on and plans for making a multitude of home-buildable instruments. http://www.ehhs.cmich.edu/~dhavlena

Healey Flute Company: Beautiful wooden flutes and fifes, both keyed and keyless, and related information. http://www.skiphealy.com

Matt Heckert�s automated sound machines. A wonderful diversity of sound devices from Matt’s Mechanical Sound Orchestra.

Helix Music: Original musical instruments from James Corr offered for sale. Includes variations on harps, marimbas, tambourines and many more types

Hertz-Lion: Tons of links about avant-garde cuture and odd corners of pop culture, with emphasis on music.

Himalayan singing bowls: a gallery of Himalayan singing bowls, typically sounded by circling with a wool-covered mallet. A separate, associated site sells the bowls. http://www.himalayanbowls.com and http://www.singingbowlmuseum.org/

Hind Musical Instruments: Beautiful ocarinas made of American walnut

Paul Hirsch’s click-and-play: A web site featuring a variety of instruments both commmonplace and unusual, in click-and-play format (click over the image of the keys or sounding elements; hear the sounds). http://www.ii4i.net

Rick Hohensee: a website containing writings about advanced scale systems and harmonic structures, including pages devoted to correlations of visual scolor and musical pitch or harmony. http://linux01.gwdg.de/~rhohen/theory.html

Hosaphone: devoted to a form of flexible-tube trumpet. http://hosaphone.com

Hubbub Music: Australia’s endlessly inventive trio of instrument makers and performers under the leadership of Steve Langton. http://www.hubbubmusic.com

iCube: Midi controller featuring every imaginable sensor or interface device including mod wheels, ribbon controllers, light-sensitive controllers, magnetic field sensors, G-force sensors. http://www.infusionsystems.com

The Improvisor, journal of free improvisation - newly built site at a new addres

Inbindi bass: An electrified, tension-controlled bass produced in Jamaica, inspired by African prototypes. http://www.wheelofmusic.com/inbindi/

Infrasonic Music: experiments in concertizing with subsonic frequencies. http://www.infrasonicmusic.co.uk

International Library of African Music: A vast resource of African music and recordings, searchable by instrument type (among other things)

International Music Archives: This extensive archive has pages devoted to musical instruments of the world listed region by region. http://www.eyeneer.com/world/

IRCAM: Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique — the French institute devoted to research in music and acoustics. Well respected, very active, conducting a wide range of important work in acoustics, instrument making and related software development.

JMD Custom Instruments: High-quality hand-made and customiszed musical isntruments and experimental resources from John Dibart

Jew’s Harp Guild: Organization devoted to Jew’s harp in its many forms

Junkabilly: Music and junk-instruments from Scott Scarboro, AKA Monkey Boy. http://www.junkabilly.com

Junk Music Online Discussion Group: Eric Steuer’s group for practitioners of music made using junk. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/junkmusic

Just Strings: superstore for musical instrument strings, including hard-to-find strings for unusual instruments.

K&K Sound Systems: Makers of the affordable contact microphones that seem to be most beloved among experimental instrument makers

Kalimba Magic: Mark Holdaway’s site devoted to kalimba. http://www.kalimbamagic.com/

Buzz Kimball: Buzz Kimball works in non-12 equal temperament tunings. He works with refretted guitars and other instruments, as well as software. http://www.nonoctave.com/heroes/buzz

Michael J. King: Michael makes a variety of old world instruments such as kantele, crwth and anglo saxon lyres, as well as guitars, ukuleles, bowed psalteries and others. http://www.michaeljking.com/

Kolbe Flutes: Fine bamboo flutes from Michael Howard. http://kolbeflutes.com/

Konono: A band of musicians in Kinshasha (Democratic Republic of Congo) who, since coming to the city from rural areas, have turned to DIY amplification. The distortions and other artifacts of the amplification process have become integral to the musical style. http://www.crammed.be/konono/

Ron Konzak: Ron makes large-scale wind harps as well as chimes and xylophones configured like hammer dulcimers, not to mention Celtic harps and bagpipes. http://www.konzak.com

Max Krimmel: This site is devoted to a variety of Max’s enterprises including guitar making, wood turning and alabaster turning, but be sure to have a look at the Shona music pages and in particular the documentation of his beautiful bass marimba. http://maxkrimmel.com

Dr. Hal: Hal Kacanek’s educational programs for children using homemade instruments and instruments from around the world. http://www.DrHal.net

Jenny Wiley Dulcimers: Traditional dulcimers and dulcimer kits. http://www.jennywileydulcimers.com

Kallisti Percussion: Finely crafted percussion instruments for sale, with photos and sound files.

Kantele: a traditional fold music instrument of Finnic peoples

KTabS: A software program created by Sharon Eaton and her husband for realizing a kalimba tablature (notation system) developed by Mark Holdaway. http://www.ktabs.theirhouse.org/ktabsMain.php

Tilman Kuntzel: Composer and sound-explorer Tilman Kuntzel’s interactive sound pages. See also http://www.tkuentzel.de/ and http://www.floraberlin.de

Ela Lamblin: Ela Lamblin’s wonderful instruments were featured in ExMI’s Orbitones book & CD. This site has just a few photos; focuses on promotion of the Lela performance group.

Yuri Landman: Dutch musicina in instrument inventor YurLandman makes stringed instruments, and has photos and sounds on his Myspace space. http://www.myspace.com/stringinstruments

Laser Elegance: Hammered and fretted dulcimers from Bob Afeld. http://www.laserelegance.com/

Lautenwerk: Steve Sorli is one of very few (are there any others?) contemproary makers making Lautenwerks, which are harpsichords strung with gut strings for a lute-like sound. http://www.lautenwerk.com

Lego Harpsichord: fully functional harpsichord constructed entirely (except for the strings) of Legos, by Henry Lim. http://www.henrylim.org/Harpsichord.html

Eric Leonardson: Electroacoustic instruments and related works

Leslie and Company: A Pakistani company, manufacturers of a variety of musical instruments ranging from bodhrans to dumbeks to harps and flutes. http://www.sialkotpak.com/music/

Low-Tech Whistles: penny whistles, that is — an excellent “how to make” page for them. http://guido.gonzato.googlepages.com/whistle.html

Ludicart: Jean-Robert S�dano and Solveig de Ory create large-scale public installations, many of which, like the Cube and the Tubulophone, are musical. http://www.ludicart.com/index2.html

Lutherie Information: A site with articles and information of interest primarily to makers of acoustic guitars and string basses, from Liutaio Mottola, technical editor for American Lutherie magazine. http://www.LiutaioMottola.com

Andrew Masters: Instruments nicely made from recycled materials at Roots Productions, with an emphasis on sansas and kalimbas. http://web.mac.com/andrewmasters/iWeb/Roots%20production/Home.html

Metal Bass: A stainless steel minimalist fretless bass, with an unusual neck configuration involving a tube of stainless steel supporting each string. http://www.metalbass.com/

Paul Moore: A one man band and his collection of sound-makers. Oriented to children as well as adults. http://www.paulmooremusic.com

Music for the Love of It: a bimonthly newletterd devoted to making your own music

Musicmaker’s Kits: acoustic instruments you can build

Musicmath: Wonderful flash animations topics in tuning theory and acoustics, as well as other mathematical areas. http://www.musemath.com

Music Stands Alone: The company makes stands for a variety of unusual instruments including gongs, dulcimers, djembe tamboura and more. http://www.musicstandsalone.com/

Music Trader: site for repairing, buying and selling of pre-owned musical instruments

M-U-S-I-C.net: resource for finding musical instruments used or new

Marimba Construction: Gene Bard’s excellent information page on marimba making and bar tuning. http://home.ntelos.net/~gpbard1/marimba.htm

Will Menter’s music and instruments: Instruments, music and sound sculptures using slate, water and wood. http://www.willmenter.com

Mic DIYers: technical building and wiring instructions for any typ of microphone construction, espcially mini-mics

MIMF: Musicians and Instrument Makers Forum. A forum devoted to musical instruments. Full of good resources and lots of links.

Jean-Phillipe Minchin: A wonderful variety of handcrafted acoustic instruments, both traditional and origianl, from Jean-Phillipe Minchin. (In French.) http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jp.minchin/

Robert Minden Duo: site on the duo’s performance, recording & education activities, with sound, pictures and information on theremin, musical saw, blown bottles and other instruments they play

Moonlander: and Moodswinger: Many-stringed electric guitar-like instruments developed by Uri Landman. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlander; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moodswinger

Mouth Music Press: Online store and information center devoted to musical instruments using oral cavity resonance.

Mugwumps: magazine (not currently publishing but soon to start again) devoted to diverse folk instruments; good links page.

Musical Furnishings: Tables, chairs and the like, beautifully made, which also function as acoustical musical instruments. http://www.musicalfurnishings.com

Musical Instrument History Store: a retail outlet devoted to historical instruments, in a site that is full of information on the subject. http://www.instrument-musical.com

Musical Instrument Project ‘06: Musical instruments built by students of David Lapp at Tamalpais High School, Maring County, California. http://staff.tamhigh.org/lapp/MIP05.htm

Musical Saw and Theremin from Robert Froehmer. http://www.theremin-saw.com

Music Animation Machine: “An Elegantly clever way to visualize music,” from Stephen Malinowski. http://www.well.com/user/smalin/samindex.html

Music Box Drum: Collin Thomas has embedded several music box mechnisms into a snare drum for a complex of drum sound and fracture music box textures. http://www.vimeo.com/1829334

Vladiswar Nadishana: This mystical Russian musician and artist presents his work and ideas in a finely designed web site. His instruments include banbang, pruzingam, ghost catcher and more. http://eed.udm.ru/nadishana/Rus/MainEng2.htm

National Music Museum: One of the world’s leading musical instrument museums, with strong ollections in diverse areas including 19th century and early 20th century Americna instrumets, hisotrical European instruments, and much more. An excellent site. http://www.usd.edu/smm/

New Interfaces for Musical Experession: NIME is a gathering of people interested in all aspects of novel musical instrument controllers. NIME 1 and 2 took place in 2001 and 2002; NIME 3 will be in 2003. There’s some corporate involvement, but the line-up of speakers and demonstrators has been open and diverse, including many names that have appeared in the pages of ExMI over the years.Some web sites: http://www.mis.atr.co.jp/~mlyons/nime02.html. http://www.nime.org

Novelty Music Groups: This is the web site for a discussion group devoted to this subject. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/noveltymusicgroup/

Eric Nugent: Slide sax, pyrophone, flexidoos and more from musician and instrument maker Erik Nugent. http://www.nununugent.com

Noisejunk A broad listing of unusual and invented instruments. Arno Lambert, the site’s cordinator, writes “Noisejunk wants to be an archive of original, not common musical instrument/sculputers/musical interfaces etc…. The site is born out of love for sounds, where sounds can be every kind of noise produced by whatever object.” http://www.noisejunk.eu/

Nurnichtnur: German experimental music label. http://www.nurnichtnur.com

Oddmusic: The Oddmusic site, associated with the Oddmusic mailing list, has really taken off in its own right. Sign up for the email list devoted to unusual musical instruments, or just explore the site hand all its unusual instrument features

Oddmusic mailing list devoted to unusual musical instruments, a newly established web page.

Mats Oljare: Mats makes or modifies, and plays, a number of instruments related to the balalaika. http://artists.iuma.com/IUMA/Bands/Mats_ljare/

One-man Band: Bluegrass musician Eric Royer’s one-man band set-up

Optigans: Early electronic toy musical instrument (from Mattel).

Oriscus Musical Instruments Data Base: Dwight Newton of Oriscus.com has assembled this well organized, logical and easy-to-use data base covering all sorts of online resources relating to musical instruments. http://www.oriscus.com

Orgue a Feu: Michel Moglia’s grand-scale fire organ, with beautiful photos of his stunning performances and more. http://www.orgue-a-feu.com/chants.htm

Orphic Airs: Makers of hurdy gurdies, psalteries, bodhrans, and lots more. http://www.cyber-dyne.com/~danae/index.htm

Otros Instrumentos: Hugo Dominguez has created a wonderful array of instruments, including strings and winds and others, mostly using commnplace materials. http://www.otrosinstrumentos.com.ar/

Oud: Kaira Records provides this information page on oud. http://www.kairarecords.com/oudpage/oud.htm

More Oud: Nikis Dimitriadis presents this side devoted to the oud. http://www.oud.gr/

Palm Guitars: Buyers, sellers and repairers of unusual guitars as well as other instruments. http://www.palmguitars.nl

Pan Pipes: Lots of information, images, links and so forth devoted to pan flutes. http://pan-flute.com/index_flash.html

Panpipe manufacturer: http://www.dajoeri.com/

Pedal slide guitar: site devoted to this instrument

Pickups: Jim Radiner’s digest of articles on electric pickups

Pigeon Flutes: Uli Wahl has created this site devoted to tiny flutes that can be attached to pigeons so that they sound in flight. http://members.aol.com/woinem1/index/pigflut.htm

Pixound: A patented technology for mapping images into sound

Plastic Sound: An international network of people interested in instruments made from plastic pipe. http://bands.console.net/pvc/

Linsey Pollak: Linsey makes and performs with a variety of wonderful wind and other-than-wind instruments, shown here with photos, sound samples and more. http://www.linseypollak.com/

Pointless Orchestra: ExMI writer and musical explorer Mike Hovancsek’s group: Sounds, information, writings.

Punk as a Doornail: punk band that mixes rock with atonal avant garde by means of the akatar (bass/guitar made for skateboard)

Rudi Punzo: odd and interesting sculptural musical instruments from the Italian scluptor/musician Rudi Punzo. http://www.rudipunzo.it

Prepal: A used instruments outlet on the web. Huge invenotry of used instruments, with additional information such as statistic on average prices that items sell for. http://www.prepal.com

Psimple Psaltery: Instructions for making a bowed pslatery, by Eric Meier. http://www.apsimplepsaltery.com/

PVC Flutes: An excellent source for detailed plans for PVC flutes from Peter Kosel. Includes an online hole-position calculator.

Pyrocussion: A set of multiple vertical flame cannons, played with traditional drumsticks. It’s derived from a recreational flamethrower, but extensively reconfigured for musical control. http://www.pyrocussion.com

Ragtime Automated Music automated musical instruments in the tradition of band organs and orchestrions, but using MIDI control systems and some not-so-traditional acoustic sound sources:

Hal Rammel: All about some of Hals’ instruments such as the Sound Palette, references to a number of other instruments, Penumbra recordings, and other interests.

Susan Rawcliffe: Ceramic flutes and ocarinas from a wonderful instrument maker and performer. See also http://www.artawakening.com/soundworks

Jacques Remus: Wonderfully inventive, large scale self-playing instruments. http://www.mecamusique.com/sommaire.html

Hans Reichel: Inimitable daxophone sounds and animated imagery

Richmond Indigenous Gourd Orchestra: Original music played on handmade instruments made from locally grown gourds.

Ringflute: an elegantly made flute configured in a ring-like shape. http://www.ringflute.com

Andy Rust: Very beautiful electric and semi-acoustic bass guitars as well as didjeridus from New Zealand maker Andy Rust. http://www.customrust.co.nz/

J.A. Martin Salinas: information about the bellophone, and assembly of tuned conical bells. http://conicbellophone.wikispaces.com/

Sack & Blumm: German duo that plays wonderful music with toys and found objects.

Sapelele: A four-string instrument created by a maker identified on the site as Mr. Yong. The instrument is a cross between ukulele and a traditional Malaysian lute instrument called Sape, made of a wood called Agathis Borneenis, with exquisite decorative detailing. http://www.geocities.com/sapeborneo/sapelele.html

Saigon Strings: An outlet selling Vietnamese musical Instruments. http://www.geocities.com/saigonstrings

Sawlady: Musical saw, pitched American and European cowbells, English handbells, 4-in-hand hand bells, flexatone, theremin, etc. History of these instruments, composers manual, sound clips, CDs, poetry mentioning these instruments, etc. http://sawlady.virtualave.net/

Raymond Scott: website devoted to the late composer and pioneering maker of electronic instruments

Scrapartsmusic.com: a 5-member percussion ensemble in highly choreographed, highly athletic performances, playing over 45 origianl instruments. http://www.scrapartsmusic.com

Mark Shepard’s Flute Page: Mark has long been a pied piper of simple flute-making and play…a real treasure

Simple Musical Instruments: Ellen Kuhfield provides notes on making washtub bass and mouthbow. http://washuu.net/Musical/simple.htm

Sxip Shirey: Video of a virtuoso performance with marbles spinning in differently pitched blass bowls. http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=6FsT_lnVppw. Also see http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=5430

Robot Store: Source for hard-to-find robotics components

Rollup Piano: An electronic keyboard that can be rolled up for transport or storage. http://www.hecsaninc.com

Scapha: The Scapha instrument is highly developed long-string instrument, with 14 strings just over 8 meters long, provided with pickups. http://www.scapha.de/einstrument.html

Singing Windmills: Uli Wahl writes on special aolian sound makers attached to the blades of windmills, used of old in parts of Europe.

Sonhors: a web site devoted to th ehistory of electronic music and instruments. http://sonhors.free.fr/

Sonic Architecture:: Sound Sculptors Bill and Mary Buchen.

Sonoris Causa: a web log in French devoted to sound, featuring mp3s of from a side variety of natural sound sources. http://sonoriscausa.over-blog.com/

Sounding Bowls: Simple, beautiful musical instruments in the form of wooden bowls with strings, created by Tobias Kaye. http://sounding-bowls.com

Sound Creations. Rod Baird is a maker not only of a variety of bamboo winds, but also bowed and plucked psalteries, various sorts of shakers, and more. http://www.bambooflute.com

The Sound Surgery: A Glasgow-based workshop set up to provide technical support and expertise to musicians, performers, stage/club designers and installation artists. They custom design unconventional electro-accoustic instruments using cost-effective technologies and recycled structural materials, as well as stage multimedia controllers for sound, video and lighting. They also provide presentations about musical instruments design. http://www.thesoundsurgery.co.uk/

Sound Well: maker and seller of simple, easy-to-play instruments, suitable for children and grownups. Harmonics flutes, xylophones and more. http://www.soundwell.com

Iner Souster: Innovative string instruments on this site, titled “Iner Souster and the Experimental Instruments He Lives With.” http://inersouster.blogspot.com/

Shane Speal’s Jug Fusion: Shane makes, plays and records with cigar box guitars. http://www.geocities.com/cigarboxguitar/

Keith Spears: Instruments and sound sculpture, as well as non-sound sculpture. Much of Kieth’s work has a scrappy, industrial look, yet with visual elegance. http://keithspears.com

Spike The Percussionist: Virtuosic noiz percussion. http://www.manipulate.net/skan/

Spherical Resonator Formulas: Drew Pear has posted graphics and formulas for calculating the resonance frequencies of spherical Helmholtz resonators with and without necks. http://glassbala.com:80/calculator/calculator.html

Starr Labs: Harvey Starr’s innovative MIDI controllers, featuring a variety of interfaces, some modelled after conventional instruments (guitar, harp, keyboard) and some arranged as two-dimensinal arrays. http://www.starrlabs.com.

String Scaling: Downlaodable freeware for Windows which calculates string tensions for musical instruments.

So Group: Greorge Tzelesis, from the island of Crete, makes partially electronic, partially mechanical, partially humanoid sound instruments. http://www.sogroup.gr/

Leonard Solomon: The Majestic Bellowphone and more. http://www.bellowphone.com/

Songbells: Rick Cklausen makes metal bells in elaborated shapes to produce complex and attractive overtone blends. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpsfUcOIVOo

Nathan Stodola’s Fire Organ: Nathan Stodola has built a thermal organ which operates on a different principal than other fire organs, employing an extreme temperature differential to set up the oscillations in the tuned pipes. http://www.vu.union.edu/~stodolan/stuff/organ/

Grant Strombeck: drummer, instrument maker and sound sculpture whose work appeared in the late great Experimental Musical Instruments journal. http://grantstrombeck.dyndns.org/

More from Grant: video experimental instruments in action: http://www.dailymotion.com:80/visited/search/Grant_Strombeck/video/xq82l_manipulations

Eric Stuer: conductor of children’s workshops in making homemade percussion instruments with easily-available materials; describes the format of the workshops and some of the instruments

Sunreed: workshop and distrubutor for Native American Flutes & bmaboo flutes, didjeridus, multicultural educational programs

Matthew Steinke: Installation artist in a wide variety of media, including sound assemblages. http://matthewsteinke.com/

Diego Stocco: Wonderful music from lightbulbs, clothes rack, burning piano and more. http://vimeo.com/1748112. See also http://vimeo.com/1747790 , http://vimeo.com/1747614

Mystic Avantgarde Session, sounds created by playing various instruments in experimental ways: http://vimeo.com/1748359

Terra Nova: Musical group using experimental instruments from a variety of different makers in Northern California

Thai Elephant Orchestra: This is Mulatta records’ information page for their recent release of a CD featuring elephants playing sound-objects designed just for them. http://www.mulatta.org/Thaielephantorch.html

The Thummer: An electronic musical instrument currently development, due out in 2006 from Jim Plamondon. The interface is a two-dimensional array reflecting pitch relationships and allowing a high degree of expressivity. http://www.thumtronics.com/

Thundertube: On the Wall Productions presents Thundertubes (a spring-sound device) and several other funny sound instruments. http://www.thundertube.com

Tommy Dog: Wide-ranging site including sections devoted to instruments. A new feature, still in the early stages, is a listing of instrument makers with product descriptions, prices and contacts.

Transperformance Self-tuning Guitar: a system for quick and accurate guitar tuning, employing a computer chip and tiny motors mounted on the guitar; programmable and very flexible, allowing for creative possibilities

Treetones: handmade kalimbas and marimbas

Hans Tschiritsch: Hans makes wonderful odd instruments, mostly but not exclusively winds, and plays them as well as conventional instruments with both huor and virtuosity with his ensemble. http://members.chello.at/tschiritsch/default.htm

Tub-O-Tone: Lauren Miller’s Tub-O-Tone washtub bass. This page features lots of washtub bass information, and has plans for the Tub-O-Tone design for sale. http://tub-o-tone.com

Tuning & Timbre Synthesizer Applet: A Java Applet based on the work of theorist Bill Sethares, which allows the user to program and play scales and their related timbres (or vice verse) using FM synthesis, and displays the dissonance curve. http://eceserv0.ece.wisc.edu/~sethares/forrestjava/html/TuningAndTimbre.html

Uli Wahl’s sound kites

Underwater Listening: MIchael Carreira provides instructions for making an effortless underwater listening device uising a dictaphone. http://www.blueray.com/underwater/research.html

Uncle B: A site devoted to antiques with lots of commections for mechanical musical instruments. http://www.uncle-b.nl/UsaEerste.htm

Unheard of Musical Instruments: Ron at Unheard of Musical Instruments makes a variety of handmade instruments including both standard instruments, his own designs, and custom designs commissioned by customers. http://unheardofinstruments.com/

Urban Strawberry Lunch: a United Kingdom music group that makes and plays all their own instruments, largely from throw-aways

Vents Sauvages: bamboo saxophones from Eric Wurbel. (In French). http://www.vents-sauvages.fr/

Gerald Van Waess presents four different pages relating to experimental instruments and other musical topics: http://www.radiocentraal.be/psychevanhetfolk, http://psychevanhetfolk.homestead.com, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/psychevanhetfolk/

Video Game Controller Instrument: Tont Amendolare (Electrokraft) demonstrates a music-making system built around a video game system. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU_XcY337RE

Volcanic Ceramics: Beautiful ceramic buggles and drums from Jason Giddy. http://www.volcanicceramics.com

Waldenwinds Aeoloian Harps: A minimal site providing contact information for Ken Turkington’s aeolian harps based on historical models. http://www.waldenwinds.com

Washtub Bass Page: All about wash tub basses and related instruments. http://tubotonia.freehomepage.com/Tub-O-Tone.html

Richard Waters and the famous Waterphone. http://www.richardAwaters.com.

Peter Whitehead: Instruments and music from this innovative maker

Windchimes.com: retail outlet for windchimes, wind spinners, and related items. http://www.windchime.com/

Wind chimes Free Shipping.com: commercial site for wind chimes. http://www.wind-chimes-free-shipping.com/

Windharp Live: Live windharp sounds, with links to windharp construction and relative information, from Bill Sherman. http://home.comcast.net/~botronics/windharp.html

Dale Wisely’s tin whistles

Wolf Tiles: Uli Wahl writes on special roof tiles designed towhistle in the wind, used of old in parts of Europe

Woodwind Instrument Makers: a Yahoo discussion group. http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/WwIM

World Forum for Acoustic Ecology: membership organization devoted to sound envirionment awareness

Xaphoon: The Maui xaphoon is a bamboo saxophone made in Hawaii and currently being distributed by GAry Friedman. http://www.xaphoon.com/

Yona: A travel guitar made of the finest materials, handcrafted in Israel. http://esek.com/yona

Isac Zal: Maker of fretted string instruments in a variety of exquisite sculptural forms, with bodies made of steel. http://www.isaczal.com

Zap: visceral electronic music — not synth tones, but sizzles crackles, booms and more from a variety of electronic components. http://www.airplaneears.com/zap.shtml

Zube Tubes: acoustical explanations, sound samples, ordering information for this wonderful toy soundmaker.

Zu Casa: online laboratory for exhibition, performance and promotion of experimental and improvised music, created by Hans Fjellestad & Damon Holzborn