Its been a few weeks from I updated on the ‘I’ve Got An Idea’ Melodica Sound Chamber idea but what a few weeks it has been.
The melodica is a charismatic little instrument and in my time playing it I have found that it seems to attract the most positive and creative people. It would be fair to say that my idea to modify the sound and of necessity the design of the case has also attracted the most creative people too and what started off as an Armagh project has now went inter County with the arrival of talented carpenter, Eamon Rush from County Down.
Eamon is the grandfather of my piano and melodica keyboard student Finn Woods and it has been through Finn’s enthusiasm for keyboard playing that Eamon became involved in the project. As soon as had he had expressed an interest a full compliment of McBrides descended on him with all manner of assorted melodicas, hopes, dreams and visions and Eamon didn’t disappoint. Armed only with vaguest of instructions he got to work on prototype 1 and in record time had a complete model completed.
I knew Eamon, as a professional, was going to be an unbelievable asset to the project but I was completely knocked out by what he has made. Check out the photos below. I’ll detail in a later post how Eamon navigated some tricky practical issues relating to keeping the design airtight using the wood of the case itself.
While Finn has been putting his very handsome new instrument through its paces I have been road testing audio spectrum analysers for the sound design phase, discussing the inner workings of Helmholtz resonance chambers with some physicists and Rocky has been working on the design of the outer case for the 32 key models.
Given all the positive developments I can’t wait for our next design meeting to pool all the knowledge together and start to finalise an overall chamber and case. There are always practical considerations in every project and I know as we refine things issues like focussing on 32 key models or 37 key models will become more important to pin down but check out the grins below as the street cred of the melodica just got a massive boost 😀
Thanks again to Alison Kidd and the ‘I’ve Got An Idea’ Fund for making this all possible and keep an eye out for the next update.