Lior Arbel

PhD Candidate

Supervisors:
Yoav Schechner, Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Technion, Israel
Noam Amir – Department of Communication Disorders, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University

Active Wineglass Musical Instruments

My research concerns the development of a novel active musical instrument, the Symbaline. My aim was to develop a musical instrument which uses wine glasses as sympathetic radiators of string sounds, much like the Sitar uses two sets of strings. Initially, acoustical methods of coupling strings and wine glasses were developed, and prototypes of musical instruments based on these methods were suggested. Later, the Symbaline was developed using electromagnets to generate wine glass sounds using amplified signals produced by a guitar. The Symbaline sound space was then explored using various input instruments, custom virtual instruments and audio effects. I’m currently developing electromechanical effects to enrich the Symbaline’s sound.

Keywords:
Active instruments; Musical instruments; Sympathetic resonance; Symbaline; Wine glass music;

Publications:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003682X17302797
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09298215.2018.1465983

Interest:
Musical instruments, electric guitars, sympathetic instruments, active instruments, wine glass music, signal processing (mainly musical signals), signal integrity, waves, music.

Email:
lior.e.arbel@gmail.com