Further ideas on the AutoZither

In my previous blog, I spoke about key issues with the AutoZither; since then, I’ve finished my dissertation which means I can focus purely on this now. Along with this, I’ve furthered two ideas about my autozither, which were discussed before.

Reinforcement

The AutoZither needs to be reinforced, as the wood it’s currently made of is weak and brittle. The best way to do this while preserving the original instrument is to replace some parts. The best part to replace to increase its overall integrity is the bottom plate. If the bottom plate is sturdy, then the rest of it will be more secure and allow a good connection to other attachments I wish to put onto it.

The other idea is to completely recreate it, but wider and shorter. While I can do this with sustainable materials, what will I do with this old autoharp?

Advanced ideas

I suddenly had an idea to put a sequencer into the AutoZither, which controls the motors. If I can do this, I can easily make interesting rhythms played through the motors, kind of like they are being strummed with a weird guitar pick. I am looking into this as I type and seeing how difficult it is to control multiple motors simultaneously. Also, having multiple sequencers per string would be hard to control and quite bulky. Finally, I will have to look into coding, as making a purely analogue sequencer is difficult and bulky, while a mixture of analogue and digital should give what I’m looking for.