Week 15 - Making Machines

Before I was able to make my keys, I had to measure and see what was really going on with how the frequencies worked. I had to go to my school’s music building and find a glockenspiel with enough notes to find a sort of ratio between. The glockenspiel in the music building used a different metal however. I was not able to confirm with my music director what infact the metal was, so I decided to just go with copper as my material. The copper was definetly more dense than the metal there, but that ended up proving well since the copper bar was about half the size of the bar on the glockenspiel.

First, I had to order the parts that I wanted to make keys out of. I chose copper bar because it made a pretty nice sound and wouldn’t be to expensive to order (especially if I messed up the pieces). It was a sufficient material.

These are pictures of the copper notes cut out. I would have used a chop saw, but since I am a minor, my father didn’t feel all that comfortable with me using it. I did, however, use the sander to get any weird bits of chunks out of there (or just to slightly tune.) For tuning, I used the app Lite Tune. I used a couple rubber bands to hold the material up in place while striking notes. I kept fine-tuning them with a grinder until they were the preferred length and pitch.

Digital Process

The digital process for how I made the keys would be the tuning app on my dad’s iPhone. Since I had to use a different material than the glockenspiel keys at my school, most of the measurements wouldn’t work together. Therefore, I ended up having to tweak the measurements based on what I heard and what the app heard when the copper was struck. Overall, I’d say the app is pretty cheap (I mean they are offering a free service), but it gets the job done!