Kontrabasharpa build

Finally, now I have a proper setup for sound recording, I made a recording of the kontrabas nyckelharpa. This is […]

Here’s the kontrabasharpa with its new tailpiece. I think it looks somewhat smarter than it did before. Many thanks to

I had to take all the strings of the kontrabasharpa off, of course, to fit the new tailpiece. This gave

It didn’t take long to cut out the new tailpiece shape with hand saws, but I had a sore shoulder

The tailpiece on the kontrabasharpa was originally designed to be somewhat over-engineered, as I had no idea how strong it

A privilege to play kontrabasharpa in the largest gathering of players of the instrument in the UK – many thanks

I simply had to have a go at making a bow. I’d saved a bit of branch from the tree

First meeting of the UK kontrabas nyckelharpa collective 🙂 Great to meet up and play with Vicki Swan at the

After about a year it’s finally playable. I’ve added a link to a video so that you can hear it;

After making all the keys it’s time to put on the strings and try it out! First the playing strings,

The final step with the keys is to shape them nicely, adding some traditional decoration at the ends, and to

Making the keys is the last complicated job for the kontrabas, simply because they are all slightly different, and some

The nut on a stringed instrument like the nyckelharpa is the piece of wood (or sometimes plastic) over which the

When I first started the drawings I had decided how I wanted to tune the sympathetic strings. I wanted a

I wanted the kontrabas body to be a fairly dark colour, and initially thought that “Falun red” (the colour of

Nycklar och löv – 1 🙂 (Keys and tangents – 1) The raw materials!

The tailpiece isn’t fastened to the body, just held in place by the tension of the strings and a retaining

The bridge is a key component – but pretty small! In the traditional instruments, some of the sympathetic strings were

Unfortunately I forgot to take photos as I was making the soundpost. It’s another piece of the old piano soundboard,

There are a lot of possibilities in choosing the wood to use from my recycled piano – I don’t know