Daxophone

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The daxophone, invented by Hans Reichel, is a musical instrument of the friction idiophone category. It consists of a thin wooden blade fixed in a wooden block (often attached to a tripod), which holds a contact microphone. Normally, it is played by bowing the free end, but it can also be struck or plucked, which propagates sound in the same way a ruler halfway off a table does. These vibrations then continue to the wooden-block bass, which in turn is amplified by the contact microphone therein. A wide range of voice-like timbres can be produced, depending on the shape of the instrument, the type of wood, where it is bowed, and where along its length it is stopped with a separate block of wood (fretted on one side) called the "dax."

Reichel has documented the construction of the instrument in a way that a skilled woodworker could build his own. Plans are downloadable from his website, with the nice twist that a collection of proven shapes for the blade is delivered in the file format of a font, thus playing on Reichel's other profession as a typeface designer.