Whamola (Or Not)

[Rhoda]

I don't consider myself all that musically gifted. I can play a little guitar and a little drums, but not so much that I can pick an instrument up and immediately play something contemporary and impress people. In fact, I'll see an instrument and tend to shy away from picking it up. What I tend to do instead is play it like I'm meant to be awful. I'll tap the strings, rub the fret and bang the sides, more so if it's an acoustic guitar. What I get is a rough, daft noise, and this is kind of where this starts.

 

Conventional instruments bore me. That isn't to say I'm some hipster twat that doesn't like music, because I love what other people can do with instruments. It's just my own limitation that irks me. Call it pretentious, call it pathetic, but I'd love to be able to make something myself and play it the way I want. There'd be no such thing as "the wrong way" to play it.

 

I first heard of the whamola when it came to Les Claypool. I'm a fan of Primus, but his solo work is much better to me. I saw

and was amazed at just how different it looked and sounded, but at the same time retaining the fundamental bass structure. I dug deeper, and then moved onto That 1 Guy, who plays this mindblowing creation called

. His excuse for making it was feeling limited by his instrument. In other words, the exact opposite of me - he's so good he felt frustrated by what he couldn't play.

 

So what's all that crap got to do with me? Well, I'm looking to build my own instrument in a similar fashion. I've seen a few video tutorials and I know what materials I'll need, but instead of a wood base I'm looking to use a scaffolding pipe. There's more influence from That 1 Guy than anyone else, but I'll be nowhere near that level of advanced ingenuity. Rather, I just want to combine percussion and upright bass in a different way. It'll take a while, but I've got a couple of people willing to help me and I'm sure the end result will be far greater than anything I expect if I work hard and keep testing new things out.

 

Does anyone here play anything custom, or have aspirations of making their own instrument? I'm just curious if this is something that crosses many people's minds, musically talented or not.

[*MURDOC*]

Funny you should mention this, as me and a friend are about to embark on an instrument making adventure, which includes a Whamola (both of ours), a Cigar-box guitar (his), an Upright Suitcase-Bass (mine), and some sort of manual percussion box.

 

Right now I'm looking for some hardwoods and a nice hardshell suitcase, weve already got a few spare pickups, and we were also thinking of making our own pickups too.

 

This guy plays a very nice and interesting example of a Cigar-box Guitar, pretty sure its three guitar strings and a bass string, plus he plays the percussion with his feet.

 

 

 

One instrument I particularly love is the Drumitar, made by Roy "Futureman" Wooten, brother of Reggie and Victor Wooten.

 

 

 

The thing is so badass.

 

 

 

By the way, I just saw Primus in October and it was awesome, he whipped out the Whamola and everything!

Edited November 27, 2010 by *MURDOC*

[Rhoda]

I f*cking love that you have a whamola. Is it home-made or store bought? I know some places must sell them, albeit scarcely.

 

Good to hear you're also embarking on your own instrument building ideas too. It seems the way forward is indeed combining percussion and string.

[*MURDOC*]

I f*cking love that you have a whamola. Is it home-made or store bought? I know some places must sell them, albeit scarcely.

 

Good to hear you're also embarking on your own instrument building ideas too. It seems the way forward is indeed combining percussion and string.

It was on ebay actually, and I think it was made by the same guy who made Claypools.

 

We're going to use it as a template to make our own. Our ultimate goal is an entire band of homebrew instruments.