NovaKordo

The big obstacle to playing the Novakordo has been getting into it (or wearing it, if you prefer). By having the harness connected to the frame, one had to slide into it from below with hands over the head. Then a bit of wiggling before doing up the belt (bottom strap). Finally shifting everything around into a comfortable position.

It dawned on me that if one wore the harness first, things would be a lot easier. At the start of the week, I imagined having a couple of hooks at waist level, attaching them to the frame and then having some sort of side clips. So I created a couple of these.

The slot takes the “belt” part of the harness, and the hook goes under the lower rear of the frame. For the side straps to slide in, I made these to attach to the upper part of the frame so the side straps can be slid in:

Pleased to say that it worked even if the lower hooks needed a bit of fiddling with and a second print would be required to make them more comfortable by being less pointy. But in playing around I realised that the upper parts worked so well that the lower hooks were unnecessary – belting alone was better.

One final thing was needed and that was a point of attachment around the neck. I briefly flirted with the idea of a bondage collar but a) they all seemed rather expensive and b) a simple saxophone strap might be better – it was and all for £10.

This video will give you a better idea.

Now that I have a website up and running, I am going to try and keep a record (at least weekly) of what I am about to/have been doing. So first off, was slightly peeved to see that after I had submitted my entry for the Guthman Musical Instrument Competition, they extended the deadline. I had rather rushed and burned the midnight oil to get everything ready for the original deadline of 1st October and would have presented something better with the extra 10 days that I could have had. Having said that, I guess everything boils down to whether Novokordo is sufficiently interesting for the judges.

So this week I will be building the “hook” – which is the name I am giving to the points of attachment of the frame to my body. Currently, the harness is fitted directly to the frame but this makes it rather difficult to “wear” the instrument. By having some hooks on the harness one can wriggle into this and then attach the frame. As the harness is also a back posture corrector, one can wear this all day long and get a spinal bonus.

I am also going to get my laptop synchronised with my PC – currently, I have been using the PC for plugging Novakordo into but as I start to use it live, it will be working through the laptop. This means getting all my plugins on both computers and using pCloud for shared memory. Not a huge task, but needs to be done now.

And I will be continuing to flesh out this website – as I think of the posts that I should have written, I will add them in an outline form and then fill in as and when.

Quite by chance I found out about a competition devoted to new musical instruments and I have submitted the Novakordo. There are monetary prizes but the real draw would be going to Atlanta to chat to and perform in front of other instrument makers. Here is the video that I created as part of my submission.

If you have made an instrument, you can find out more abour the Guthman Musical Instrument Competition here.