The Lament of Saint Patrick’s Snakes is an ambient piece using a home made instrument of six guitar strings stretched over a 28″ by 3″ by 1/2″ oak board tuned with zither pins by ear to a JI open chord. The instrument is then bowed with a viola bow, ebow, and strummed while the pitch is modified with a steel guitar slide, recorded in Sonar X1 with a liberal helping of effects. The pickups are two AXL piezo pickups clamped to the instrument top and bottom at the bowed end (not shown). The black strips are magnetic – the instrument was originally an experiment in creating an adjustable fret stick guitar.

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