Bart Hopkin

For most string instrument inventions you might dream up, it’s not too hard find suitable strings.

Everyone who’s into percussion knows: ya gotta get the right mallet if you want a good sound.

The Undertone Instruments Collection is an ensemble of musical instruments tuned to a subharmonic scale.

Let’s talk about metal sheets used as musical sound sources.

— A very short commentary Most western musical instruments are designed to produce relatively simple and coherent tone qualities.

Letting people know, I’ve recently released an album of my own music, played mostly on instruments of my own design and construction – the first such release I’ve done in many years.

This article is a brief description of an easy trick you can use for an interesting and unusual tone quality in string instruments. https://barthopkin.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/2-3_harmonic-damper.mp3 The idea is to insert a soft damper, such as a pi…

This article is about the different ways one can think about musical scales and the logic that underlies them.

A while back I received an email with a suggestion: Why not create a commercial collection of audio samples featuring prepared piano sounds, using my old upright?

Some time ago I gathered a set of stainless steel drinking water bottles, tuned them by adding suitable amounts of water, and hung them on a frame for playing by percussion.

What happens when two or more musical strings are connected to one another?