Strange Instrument #6: Should We Call It a Hybritar?
I ain’t bullshitting you when I tell you that you can find at least one strange instrument per week when you dig the wonderful world of musical instruments!! The best thing about this one? I didn’t have to really dig to find it, it rether popped up to my eyes! Even better, it seems to be a unique instrument… One of a kind! Along with this instrument, I also discovered Zailm Atoyanh, owner of this peculiar instrument, who plays a music that is something like ambiant-experimental-jazz-loung (yeah that’s a lot of things).
Zailm himself describes it as a hybrid with no particular name, so I temporarily named it hybritar… I just hope Zailm and his luthier won’t be mad at me. This hybritar is really a weird instrument… Here is the description of this instrument made by a Chinese luthier for Zailm Atoyanh:
He (the luthier) made me a copy of a Parker Fly carbon neck except the scale is different and it has 8 strings instead of 6. The body is reduced the same way as Steinberger’s body shapes.
It is equiped with 2 custom made pickups each having a split and the following controls: on/off – gain – low – high. It also has a midi captor.
The Floyd tremolo is driven by a sensitive captor that controls a jack instead of a set of springs. This allows the Floyd to be used precisely (½ tone, 1 tone and 2 tones).
It is tuned as following: A-G-G#-C-D-D#-E-F. The neck is positioned upward instead of the usual horizontal position.
The scale and tuning are the properties that make it a unique instrument very different from a guitar. Under each string, there is a strip used to pull an adjustable electro-magnet that produces an Ebow similar effect.
Zailm claims that it is not really interesting to give these details about his hybritar… You bet it has some interest, at least to me!! This is one of the weirdest and best guitar-related instrument ever! And according to the strange and atmospheric music that he composes, this is a good instrument that allows him to build some unbelievable sound textures. If you want to go further and listen to his music, here is his LastFm page with a lot of music stuffed in it [Zailm Atoyanh's LastFm page]. It shows the tonal possibilities of the instrument… And the instrumentalist obviously.
on dirait bien que c’est d’la gratte quand même non ? à partir de là à quoi bon …
Bah une guitare à 8 cordes accordées de cette façon, ce n’est plus tout à fait de la guitare… C’est là tout l’intérêt. Un instrument dérivé pour un usage relativement neuf!
La bonne nouvelle dans tout ça, c’est que t’es encore parmi nous par contre… Tu réponds plus au téléphone??
It surely looks weird, very strange invention.
I’d say, wonderfully weird invention
I really do like when people have such crazy ideas that would extend the tonal possibilities of an instrument.