In front of my desk in my room is a wood paneled wall with a cubbie. It's about a foot wide, 10 inches from top to bottom and maybe 7 inches deep. I'm just guessing. Around this cubbie is a border of wood. In the bottom right corner under the border i have jammed one end of an elastic string that used to have glitter on it. It's from a christmas box of chocolates my uncle sent me last year. I stand in front of this cubbie whose bottom is at chin height, (i'm only 5ft1in) so my arms are above my head as i pull this string across the cubbie to the border on the left which acts as my only fret. The string is a few inches longer than the cubbie is wide, but when i pull it it gets longer so my hand is 3/4 along it's length as i pull back and forth across the border to tighten and loosen the string. No matter how hard i pull it never pops loose from it's mooring. The recording starts with me standing up from my chair. In the first part until 01:54 i am playing the string at maybe 30° from horizontal. It has a buzzy quality that reminds me of an african folk instrument i can't remember the name of. From 01:33 to 01:54 i'm trying to imitate a korean folk vibrato kind of thing. In the second part until 02:29 i am playing 45 to 60° from horizontal and it sounds like a full-bodied string bass with no buzz. In the last part beginning at 02:34 i am playing about 75° from horizontal across the top border of the cubbie on the left so it sounds buzzy and african again, and i'm just going crazy goofing around with a crazy bluesy rock sort of rhythm. There didn't seem to be any homemade 1-stringed wall-cubbie basses on this site so here is mine, have fun. I don't play it if mom is home because the living room is on the other side of the wall and she can't hear tv. Also my neighbor can probably hear it in the next apartment lol. Recorded with microsoft lifecam 3000.
Author: Kbclx