#Bandura Rework Project 2024

[the-iron-shoulder]

back on my bullshit: bandura edition

[image description: three photos of a poorly made Ukrainian bandura, which is a stringed instrument in the zither family. It is shaped kind of like the lowercase letter “b” and has strings stretched across its entire length. On this one, the bridges are made out of a bunch of little pieces of varying sizes, which is not standard. It has a very messy appearance. End description.]

so back in 2022 I found out that the bandura exists (I don’t have any Ukrainian heritage or connection afaik, but I read an article about it in a mega old newsletter and it was a whole story that I’ll tell some other time) and I became obsessed with the idea of making one. It was the second woodworking project I’d ever tried and, while I think I did pretty well considering my lack of tools and lack of experience, it never actually turned into something I was happy with. I mean, compare what a professionally made one looks like:

[image description: a professionally made Bandura, which looks very different from the amateur one above. End description.] image credit: Julianhayda, Wikimedia commons, CC-By-SA

big difference. Also, beyond the aesthetics, it just wasn’t playable… the lower strings were sometimes okay, but the higher strings never resonated and just sounded dead, when they weren’t just slipping off the bridges in the first place. Also, the string placement wasn’t very good and it was hard to physically reach a lot of the higher strings. That’s why you’ve never heard me post a recording of me playing this thing… it doesn’t really work!

I’ve got some better tools now, specifically a router, so I’m hoping that I can redo the bridges on this bad boy and actually turn it into something functional!

so normally, many banduras are diatonic (like the white keys on a piano with no black keys), but I don’t like that because I want to be able to play any arbitrary video game music song I want on it, not just songs that don’t have chromatic notes in them. So what I tried to do (which didn’t work, to be clear) was to have each individual little bridge be a high bridge or a low bridge so that the strings would be at an angle, with the idea being that the natural notes (“white keys”) would be raised near the top of the instrument and the accidentals (sharps and flats, “black keys”) would be raised near the bottom of the instrument, thereby theoretically making it easier to tell by touch where each note is.

I think that this can still work! But instead of making the bridges out of a million little triangles, I’m going to try to make them solid pieces (two of the bridges on the existing instrument are kind of like that), but differently from how I did it last time. First, I’m going to simply make them taller, so there can be a bigger differentiation between a string’s “up” position and its “down” position. That might help them feel a little less crowded, maybe? Also instead of trying to use a drill press to punch holes in the bridge for the “down” portion, I’m going to try to use a router to carve a groove through it, leaving some posts for support. I’m also thinking that the router will let me make a more consistent point at the top of each of these, so there will hopefully be a good spot for the strings to sit and so they might not slip as much? I’ll still probably need to file little notches in for them to sit in, but one thing at a time, I guess.

I still don’t actually know what I’m doing! This may end up as a monument to my failure! We’ll find out!!

[the-iron-shoulder]

[image description: a piece of wood with some shallow grooves routed into it. End description.]

First attempt. Turns out that particular router bit is too short to go all the way through the wood so I’ll have to flip it around and go in from the back… but it’s REALLY hot out and I didn’t wanna stay outside any longer, so that’s going to come later

back on my bullshit: bandura edition

[image description: three photos of a poorly made Ukrainian bandura, which is a stringed instrument in the zither family. It is shaped kind of like the lowercase letter “b” and has strings stretched across its entire length. On this one, the bridges are made out of a bunch of little pieces of varying sizes, which is not standard. It has a very messy appearance. End description.]

so back in 2022 I found out that the bandura exists (I don’t have any Ukrainian heritage or connection afaik, but I read an article about it in a mega old newsletter and it was a whole story that I’ll tell some other time) and I became obsessed with the idea of making one. It was the second woodworking project I’d ever tried and, while I think I did pretty well considering my lack of tools and lack of experience, it never actually turned into something I was happy with. I mean, compare what a professionally made one looks like:

[image description: a professionally made Bandura, which looks very different from the amateur one above. End description.] image credit: Julianhayda, Wikimedia commons, CC-By-SA

big difference. Also, beyond the aesthetics, it just wasn’t playable… the lower strings were sometimes okay, but the higher strings never resonated and just sounded dead, when they weren’t just slipping off the bridges in the first place. Also, the string placement wasn’t very good and it was hard to physically reach a lot of the higher strings. That’s why you’ve never heard me post a recording of me playing this thing… it doesn’t really work!

I’ve got some better tools now, specifically a router, so I’m hoping that I can redo the bridges on this bad boy and actually turn it into something functional!

so normally, many banduras are diatonic (like the white keys on a piano with no black keys), but I don’t like that because I want to be able to play any arbitrary video game music song I want on it, not just songs that don’t have chromatic notes in them. So what I tried to do (which didn’t work, to be clear) was to have each individual little bridge be a high bridge or a low bridge so that the strings would be at an angle, with the idea being that the natural notes (“white keys”) would be raised near the top of the instrument and the accidentals (sharps and flats, “black keys”) would be raised near the bottom of the instrument, thereby theoretically making it easier to tell by touch where each note is.

I think that this can still work! But instead of making the bridges out of a million little triangles, I’m going to try to make them solid pieces (two of the bridges on the existing instrument are kind of like that), but differently from how I did it last time. First, I’m going to simply make them taller, so there can be a bigger differentiation between a string’s “up” position and its “down” position. That might help them feel a little less crowded, maybe? Also instead of trying to use a drill press to punch holes in the bridge for the “down” portion, I’m going to try to use a router to carve a groove through it, leaving some posts for support. I’m also thinking that the router will let me make a more consistent point at the top of each of these, so there will hopefully be a good spot for the strings to sit and so they might not slip as much? I’ll still probably need to file little notches in for them to sit in, but one thing at a time, I guess.

I still don’t actually know what I’m doing! This may end up as a monument to my failure! We’ll find out!!