I grew up with Legos.  OK, Lego brand TM circle-R Bricks and toys (Oh, heck, let's get it over with.  Here is the official "Please Lego people don't sue me, I really mean this to be a happy friendly site that would do nothing but promote your polymer playthings" disclaimer, copied straight from their website:  LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of companies which does not sponsor, authorize or endorse this site).  They formed an important part of how my brain works.  I've been playing a mountain dulcimer since I was 18. It also formed an important part of how my brain works.  Funny thing about it is that about every person I've met who recognizes the dulcimer seems to know someone who has made one. I find myself suspecting that more people make them than play one.  Late in 2003, it hit me that I could join the club by making a dulcimer from Lego parts.

I poked around the web looking for ideas on functional Lego musical instruments, and found, of all things, a Lego harpsichord.  This is a mind-boggling instrument, though if you listen to the mp3 sample of a few bars from Bach's Goldberg Variations, you will realize it sounds like--well, like it's made of Lego bricks.  But the site suggested some ideas for stringing an instrument using Lego Technics parts.

In April of 2004, I started my project.  The first problem was to make the fretboard.  Step one was to disassemble a three-foot-tall tower that was using all my big bricks. The frets have to be placed at specific increments--an integral number of studs apart.  Ideally, the frets are spaced at multiples of the twelfth root of 2 apart for an equally tempered scale.  But the result is a bunch of irrational numbers that could never be represented in the Lego medium.  However, I was aware that many intervals are represented approximately by simple ratios like 2:3 and 3:4.  I figured the best solution would be to have a "scale length" or "vibrating string length" that was a multiple of as many 2's and 3's as possible, probably a multiple of 12.  72 studs works out to about 22 1/2", a reasonable size and corresponds to 3x3x2x2x2, which allows for a lot of nice ratios.  I made the fretboard 4 studs wide, as that's about typical for a dulcimer, and three layers of bricks deep, which is both typical for a dulcimer, and pretty rigid.  I was afraid that the instrument would flex under tension from the strings and lose its tuning.  I used the biggest bricks I had, with as much overlapping of bricks in the different layers as possible, to try to make the thing rigid.  Probably plates (1/3 thick parts) would be even better, but I had to save those for later.

The frets themselves are light grey 1 x 4 plates, wedged sideways between the studs on the fretboard.  The "nut" and "bridge" are the same as the frets, though I had to raise one of them (the bridge or the nut? I can't keep them straight) two plates so the open strings clear the frets. I started the spacings using the 2:3, 4:4, and 2:1 ratios I could figure out playing harmonics on Ginger.  Ginger's scale is 23 1/4"--close enough for me to use her as a guide for putting in the rest of the frets.  Later I did a spreadsheet to figure out the exact positions, and it turns out that I got them right following Ginger.  Only a couple frets really suffer from the problem of an integral number of studs. I stopped adding frets after the 11th fret--as the 12th fret needs to be right where it can't go, and the remaining vibrating string length is short enough that the 1/2 stud error actually sounds out of tune to my ear  Fortunately, 11 frets is plenty for most tunes.

The strings are nylon fishing line (thanks to the people in the Everything Dulcimer discussion groups for that idea).  They are the only non-Lego components in the instrument.  I'm still trying to find the best line for the strings.  My first trip to the store netted me some stuff that was awfully fine.  I thought it was the heaviest they had, but I was looking in all the wrong places.  Right now I have that 12-pound test for the melody and middle string, and some 30-pound test for the bass string.  This has been a real education in instrument stringing, as I learned that higher tension sounds better, with a longer sustain, an heavier strings can give you that sound at a lower pitch.  I've also had trouble knotting the string without it slipping and going out of tune.  But I should get to how I hold the strings in place.

(I'm pleased to note that "Harpmaker," a luthier who frequents Everything Dulcimer was kind enough to send some real nylon music strings, some tied with a sample not that does not slip)

At the tail end of the instrument, I used a Lego Technics brick with three holes to hold these neat little Technics pins (I just set the parts on my scanner for the closeups):

Those pins fit right in, and I loop the end of the string around the pins.  Real neat.  My wooden dulcimers are all 4-string instruments--the melody strings are doubles.  I went for three strings on the Lego instrument for simplicity.  It's a perfectly standard variation among mountain dulcimers and  I don't consider it a cheat.

For the tuner, I used a conglomeration of Technics parts:

I'll just mention that the black thingie (shown against a white background in the inset) was part of a collection of Technic "connectors" that I had to order from Lego.  It's got enough friction when geared down to the shaft with the string to hold plenty of tension for tuning.  I had the other parts from an earlier Lego binge about 20 years ago (the axles in the picture here are more recent, just because the black ones I used wouldn't show in this scan). Here is a picture of an assembled disembodied tuner.  You can see the spool that the string winds onto on the right axle.  I threaded the string through a slot provided in the spool, and it is held tight between the axle and the spool thingie.   The black friction thing is stuck over the bottom end of the left axle.

The wheel without teeth (it's actually a pulley, I think) at the top of the left axle acts as a handle that I can turn when tuning the instrument.  You can see me tuning below.  These tuners work quite well, and I have yet to exceed the tension that they can deal with.  (update: with Harmaker's real nylon music strings, I have found the tension limit.)

By the way, the red "scroll" or "fiddle head" is pretty much decorative--it resembles the end of my Folk Roots dulcimer.  I'm thinking of replacing it with something whimsical.

With the fretboard and tuners done, the remaining component was the soundbox.  Like most parts of the Lego dulcimer, it went through a couple of iterations.  The top and bottom are made of large plates--the Lego parts that are 1/3 as thick as the regular bricks.  For the final version, I ordered two packages of assorted yellow plates from Lego to make the top.  The sides are 1 x whatever bricks--whatever I could scrounge from my stash.  I didn't have enough to do one color, so I went for a rainbow scheme--blue-green-yellow-red--which I think looks pretty neat.  The bottom is a hash of whatever plates I could scrounge.

Here is a close-up of the completed instrument.  I'm still working out bugs with the strings--they stretch and go out of tune, they tend to buzz against frets, and the volume and sustain aren't the best.  I think thicker strings with more tension could help--there seems to be leeway for more tension in the structure of the instrument.  Mercifully, I only have to worry about three strings--not the 48 strings of a 4-octave harpsichord!  I tune the instrument in the Ionian mode.  This is usually D-A-A tuning, but I have to tune a little lower at C-G-G to keep the tuners from slipping.  And the absolute tuning drifts between playings, so I just worry about realative tuning among the strings.  Because of the frets being so high (and all those studs on the fretboard) my fingers have to "float" above the fretboard as I play, giving it a bit of a weird feel.  But it plays reasonably well.  I've been practicing "Puff the Magic Dragon" on it, as well as my own compositions, just in case I want to demonstrate the instrument with a familiar tune.  Maybe I should turn the scroll into a dragon's head.

So far, the only other functional Lego musical instrument I've found on the web is the harpsichord--so maybe this is the world's only Lego dulcimer.

On the Radio!

On January 6, 2005, my Lego dulcimer made it to National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Sunday. I really fumbled and bumbled my way through the interview, but they managed to salvage three minutes of my ramblings and edit them together into answers that were no goofier than I actually am. 

The instrument sounded better on the radio than it usually does in person.  I moved the microphone to about a quarter inch from a sound hole, so that there was enough volume so that I could play gently, without stretching the strings out of tune.  And thanks to NPR's website, you can hear my Lego dulcimer in all its plasticy glory.

You can listen to the story here.  There is a link on the page to hear the interview and one to hear a longer version of the song I played, "May Damsels Dance." If you came here from that site, and happened to like the tune, here is a page devoted to "May Damsels Dance" that will play a midi version, has a link to a computer-generated MP3 version, and even has a tablature for mountain dulcimer players.  My music page has a whole slew of my compositions.

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Email:  PeteAlway (at) aol (dot) com