A tritare is an

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a ...

guitar invented in 2003 by mathematicians Samuel Gaudet and Claude Gauthier of the

Université de Moncton The Université de Moncton is a Canadian francophone university in New Brunswick. It includes campuses in Edmundston, Moncton, and Shippagan. The university was founded in 1963 following the recommendations of the royal commission on highe ...

of a family of

stringed instrument String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the st ...

s which use Y-shaped strings, instead of the usual linear strings.

Instrument sound and reactions

Y-shaped strings can produce sounds which are

harmonic A harmonic is a wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the ''fundamental frequency'', the frequency of the original periodic signal, such as a sinusoidal wave. The original signal is also called the ''1st harmonic'', t ...

integer multiples, but also non-harmonic sounds more akin to those produced by

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

instruments. The model uses 6 strings and was commercially available for a short period. The sound effects achieved with the instrument are similar to the sounds that can be achieved with the

3rd bridge The 3rd bridge is an extended playing technique used on the electric guitar and other string instruments that allows a musician to produce distinctive timbres and overtones that are unavailable on a conventional string instrument with two b ...

playing technique. When tuned correctly, the Y-shaped strings create Chladni patterns. Depending on how each note is played, Gaudet explains that non-harmonic ingredients can be included and offer a richer sound than a classical stringed instrument. However the value of this greater possibility has been questioned by physicist and acoustics specialist Bernard Richardson of

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, who considers the branched string as just a simple analogue of complex structures with curved shells such as bars, cymbals, bells, and gongs. Richardson also claims that the tritare sounds bad.

Footnotes

References

Experimental string instruments Guitars 2003 in music 2003 musical instruments Canadian musical instruments New Brunswick music {{guitar-stub