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The Bass Marimba is by far the largest and most powerful instrument I have built. It is over 12 feet long, and all of the 24 exceptionally large bars are made of Honduras rosewood. This instrument has 19 standard wavelength resonators and 5 cavity resonators. The reason for the cavity resonators is that extremely low frequencies require extremely long tubes, which, in turn, would require a high stand for the instrument and a high riser for the musician to stand on. In all 24 bars on the Bass Marimba, I tuned the first three modes of vibration to produce exact harmonic ratios 1:4:8 in each bar. Therefore, above the fundamental or first mode of vibration, the second mode sounds the interval of the double-octave, frequency ratio 4/1; and the third mode sounds the interval of the triple-octave, frequency ratio 8/1. I developed this tuning technique because in low-sounding bars the upper modes of vibration are clearly audible. Despite its enormous size, this instrument requires only a screwdriver to assemble. Hand knobs hold all the large structural components together. (See also: Creative Aspects > Instrument Design Features.) |
