Trillium Cluster

What happens if you join multiple musical strings together so that they work as a single complex vibrating system? Trillium Cluster is such an instrument.
For more on this and other instruments by Bart Hopkin, visit the instrumentarium at www.barthopkin.com or look for other videos in this channel. For a fuller discussion of conjoined string instruments, see this article: barthopkin.com/conjoined-stri....

[@carlpeberdy9086]

I have followed you for many years and I have always had a great deal of affection for this instrument, and really enjoyed seeing and hearing it being played. I have designed a 'tuned' one, ie small to large, although with crosses rather than tri-strings, maybe I will actually get around to doing it now. Thanks for all the inspiration over the years, your books and music have really helped me.

[@aaronocelot]

This is very interesting territory. I've not come across conjoined-string instruments before. Thank you.

[@revmutt]

Bart, this is a wonderful one. You remain vital and singular.

[@atlassolid5946]

if at all possible, i would love to see you and Nicolas Bras collaborate on instrument ideas someday

[@florianff8673]

Sounds like a Residents tune! Love the instrument design

[@someone7554]

Can’t be residents this is enjoyable and fun

[@Ghoopty]

I have had “Instrumentarium Hopkinis” for many years & thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you for your unique musical contribution!

[@BossBelsham]

This would be a perfect soundtrack for a horror game. I’d be approaching studios with this instrument…

[@RedHedDes]

Wow, what a creative and wonderful sounding instrument

[@TommyLikeTom]

best Trillium Cluster player in the world

[@hellf.o]

Jyst discovered you awesome instruments and already love them so much!

[@TommyLikeTom]

certainly one the Trillium Cluster players of all time

[@K0r0n1s]

Sounds like something modern Einstürzende Neubauten might've done! Interesting sounds :-)

[@ShaneMorrisMusic]

Very cool instrument. Like all your instruments, it looks like a lot of fun to play. I like that slide too.

[@JarrettJ]

completely wonderful

[@jevinday]

Sounds like Primus 😂 Seriously though, this is wonderful! They're like microtonal chords or something. Being able to tinker around and make instruments is a skill I admire

[@letMeSayThatInIrish]

Unique and interesting sound.

[@DebeshSuvat]

Love the vibes, gives me a Tom Waits feeling. Glad to have found your channel and look forward to exploring more of your work!

[@aseomg]

Wow! Some high gloss white paint, a few blinky LED lights and you have a futuristic space inspired instrument. 😎

[@spatfesters]

I love this!!!!

[@brendonbussy6066]

Very cool. I seem to remember a guitar that was built using a similar principle. Or thinking again now, it might have had strings that wrapped right around the guitar body, treating the edge as a bridge. Never found it again online. Any ideas anyone?

[@MyOtheHedgeFox]

That's a very interesting exploration! Thank you very much for giving it a try -- certainly has potential! Was it difficult to make such tri-string clusters?

[@bhpkn]

Thanks for this comment. Difficult to make? Well, of course that depends on how elaborate you want to be and how you design things. You could just put three tuning pins in a piece of plywood and tighten the star pattern of strings between them. Planning the configuration of multiple 3-string clusters on a single instrument is more challenging if you don't want to make something very big, because they kind of get in each others' way, but that's an enjoyable puzzle to work out on paper. There's also more of a challenge if you want to put them on a soundboard to make them acoustically louder, because to be effective a soundboard for strings needs to be fairly light, yet you need a thick and solid chunk to hold the tuning pins or whatever else you use to anchor the strings. You can find a lot more information in this article: barthopkin.com/conjoined-string-systems/ (although that article is not so much about actual construction as it is about theory of conjoined strings). Anyway, if you decide to make something, let me know how it turns out.

[@MyOtheHedgeFox]

@@bhpkn Appreciate the detailed comment! Thank you for the explanation and the references! =)

[@Z29vZ2xlc3Vja3Mu]

Sounds like playing the egg slicer

[@brendonbussy6066]

Exactly!

[@Mothman_Libra]

Sounds like something Dead Can Dance would play

[@thekarmafarmer608]

If Jimi Hendrix had a child with Spongebob

[@Combinia]

amazing!

[@brucebaldy]

I like it and want one

[@marshalmcdonald7476]

Viva! Yes!

[@DanysBrianBarrerasGonzalez]

Beautifull instrument!❤ How work?

[@AtomkeySinclair]

Forbidden Planet used this thing for their sound effects... at least it kinda sounds like some of it anyway.

[@Oldage429]

I notice that all of the strings form equilateral triangles, have you experimented with clusters formed of strings of differing length, or clusters with different angles between the strings?

[@bhpkn]

Hello Oldage, thanks for this comment. You can adjust the clusters to have different relative string lengths. You can find an article discussing the ins and outs of this question here: barthopkin.com/conjoined-string-systems/

[@NEEDSHES]

Wow! Beautiful! Are they all connected or there's groups of them?

[@bhpkn]

On this instrument there are eight separate 3-string clusters. You can find an article talking about the possibilities for more connected strings (and other related topics) here: barthopkin.com/conjoined-string-systems/

[@NEEDSHES]

@@bhpkn thank you! I will definitely learn more about it🙏 great job!

[@G8tr1522]

is this tuned a certain way? or are the pitches just tuned by ear?

[@freddiesmith-wright7531]

by ear most probably

[@bhpkn]

The short answer is, by ear. The long answer is interesting if you're into this kind of stuff, and I discuss it more fully in this article: barthopkin.com/conjoined-string-systems/

[@recursr1892]

Amazing!! Brilliant idea. If you play the strings plainly, it sounds like „ultrametallic“ overtones, would love to see the spectrum-this are not plain harmonics. You wrote the center knot distorts the system due its mass? In the spectrum we could see in what direction it pulls the system. Sidenote: there‘s a type of electromagnetic antenna called ‚fractal antenna“ using the same principle of branching, just with many more branches..could be interesting to drive this further and get a branch on the branch-ignoring the knot based distortion-you could use just chord proportions-a.e a fifth of the length or so, to see if this gives a nice chord. But likely, the knots are critical and cannot be ignored..Oh! What a cool idea, for exploring harmonics and distortions!

[@bhpkn]

@@recursr1892 Thanks, recursr, for these thoughts. Inharmonic strings such as this are an interest of mine; I've done a lot in this arena, mostly using not multiple string clusters but weighted strings. If you're interested you can see more of that stuff in this youtube vid: kzbin.info/www/bejne/g5rdnpx7lrl8rLM. In response to your note I had to look up "fractal antennas" -- yes, it looks like a technology that seems naturally to give rise to very cool forms and shapes.

[@recursr1892]

@@bhpkn hi Bart- if you replace the strings with metal bars, you avoid the knot center mass distortion. All parts will have equal mass, less distortions. And it does matter less, where you excite the instrument, no? Now its quite sensitive if you hit the string in the center or more outside? Of course, the sound vibrates not so long with stiff elements, and sound overall more like a kind of xylophon, and look like an antenna. But the principles stay the same.

[@MuffinMachine]

When Tom Waits dies, in the year 3035 (in the fallout of the Soup War), someone should gather his bones and make one of these out of it.

[@b42thomas]

music for spiders

[@Testgeraeusch]

Reminds me a bit of the metal rods imitating bell sounds in my great gramdmas wallclock. I like it.

[@bhpkn]

Hello Testgeraeusch, thanks for this comment. It makes sense that this reminds you of the clock chimes. A chime and a string have similar envelopes (sharp attack, gradual decay), but they are different in their overtone recipes: traditional strings have strong harmonic overtones; clock chimes have strong inharmonic overtones. But in these clusters the overtones are inharmonic, which makes it natural for the ear to think of chimes. There are several ways you can detune the harmonic overtones in strings to make them inharmonic, the simplest being to attach a small weight on the string somewhere, and they all have that chime-like quality.

[@Testgeraeusch]

@@bhpkn That's a really neat trick. Thanks :D

[@1.4142]

You could stack them all horizontally making a hammered dulcimer

[@bhpkn]

Here's something I made at one point with a different string configuration, perhaps similar to what you're thinking of, perhaps not: barthopkin.com/instrumentarium/trillium-harp/

[@1.4142]

@@bhpkn Exactly what I was thinking!

[@Combinia]

any chance your soundtrack is creative commons? i'd love to use it for an art project as a soundtrack underneath a slide show of eery A.I generated images

[@jevinday]

AI art is the opposite of creativity

[@Supernova--88]

You can get yourself a software synthesizer (like Pigments) and play around with it to come up with something creepy sounding. If you are broke there are ways to get them without money, but they are worth the money. It will take you a lot longer but it's a very rewarding process.

[@bhpkn]

Hello Combinia, thanks for this comment, I'm flattered. Before giving permission, I'd want to know more about your project. If you're still thinking about this, please email me through the contact page on may website at www.barthopkin.com.

[@Combinia]

@@bhpkn awsome!

[@Combinia]

@@jevinday I understand what you say and kind of agree, but if a human beeing is still the one who has to come up with ideas for prompts it's not 100% A.I the ideas are still mine and of course i will make all the imagies i can myself, the biggest part of the whole thing but I can not afford expensive special effects like they use in hollywood, so the A.I helps me to generate pictures like : " make a tyrannosaurus and a pterodactylus hybrid come out of a time travel portal from another dimension"