▼

Thursday, October 13, 2016

30 Days of Weird Instruments, Day 27 -- the Whamola

The Whamola is a bass guitar named after the whammy bar and viola. How those two instruments factor in to this bizarre thing is anybody's guess, but the final product is very cool.

The Whamola is a direct descendent of the washtub bass, and uses a single enormous string struck with a drumstick to make sound. A pulley system is placed on the back to loosen or tighten the string to change its pitch.

I had the distinct pleasure of seeing this extremely rare instrument in concert about ten years ago when Primus bassist, Les Claypool (credited with increasing the instrument's exposure and notoriety), played it in concert.

The below video showcases its sound quite well, assuming you can handle the equally outlandish outfits worn by the band.




Tomorrow's instrument would probably tell you to go climb a tree.

Purchase I AM DRUMS!

Previous Weird Instruments:
Day 26 - Microtones and the Microtonal Guitar
at

No comments:

Post a Comment