 Photo by Will Gullette |
| Blue Nights Music by Cris Forster David Boyden, Bass Canon Heidi Forster, Glassdance Isabelle Jotterand, Just Keys Benjamin Koscielak, Bass Marimba |
| Built: | 1989, San Francisco, California. | |
| Dimensions: | Total number of strings: 72. String length + string compensation: 1200.0 mm + 4.0 mm × 2 = 1208.0 mm Canon length: 50½ in. Canon height: 5½ in. Canon width: 42.0 in. Height on upper side: 52.0 in. Height on lower side: 31¾ in. | |
| Materials: | Sitka spruce, Honduras rosewood, birch, teak, Delrin, Kydex, E-A-R Isodamp thermoplastic, aluminum, and brass. Chromed cold-rolled steel and stainless steel. | |
| Strings: | For Blue Nights. Wound string materials and dimensions, see Bass Canon Strings. Wound string tension: 72.0 lbf | 32.7 kgf (See Musical Mathematics, pp. 39–40.) | |
| Range: | For Blue Nights. From G2 (1/1) 98.0 cps to B4 (5/4) 490.0 cps. | |
| Tuning: | Just Intonation. |
The 72 open strings of the Bass Canon sound one octave below the Harmonic/Melodic Canon. I used my String Winder to make the strings for this instrument because long, thin, and highly flexible wound strings in this frequency range are not available from commercial manufacturers.
In the history of music, the Harmonic/Melodic Canon and the Bass Canon are the first canons that satisfy two musical conditions. Both canons have independently movable bridges that produce mathematically predictable length ratios; and both canons function as fully resonant performance instruments.
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