I Wave at Nightingales, and the Nightingales Wave Back
Originally published at The Null Device Blog. You can comment here or there.
After some hand-wringing about just what I could afford to buy, I broke down last week and bought a bulbul tarang - the Indian “wave of nightingales” insturment that’s sort of like the love child of an omniharp and a mountain dulcimer. The hand-wringing occurred because a good one is a bit pricy. But I found a cheap one, marked down even further due to some blemishes, so I took a chance and figured I can learn how to use it and even hot-rod the thing a bit.
In fact I already have some interesting plans for it. First, I need to replace the zither pegs with tuning machines, then I need to figure out how to get some pickup action on it. Piezo is probably the way to go at first, although I have some magnetic pickups from a cannibalized Danelectro guitar I might try to wire in, if I can get all the imepdances to match.
Assuming, of course, I can actually play it and make something resembling a decent noise with it.