The daxophone, invented by Hans Reichel, is an electric wooden experimental musical instrument of the friction idiophones category.

Etymology

The ''dax'' in ''daxophone'' is derived from the German word ''Dachs'', meaning "badger" and referencing the many animal sounds that the daxophone is capable of generating, changed to ''dax'' so that the instrument name echoes Adolphe Sax's

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

History

The first usage of the daxophone in a musical work was the release of Hans Reichel's album ''The Dawn of Dachsman'' in 1987.

Construction

The daxophone consists of a wooden piece called a tongue, approximately 330 mm in length, 30 mm in width, and 5 mm in height, and fixed to a wooden block (often attached to a tripod, but also clamped to a table top), which holds one or more contact microphones. This wooden block has a cavity which is carved with a

chisel A chisel is a hand tool with a characteristic Wedge, wedge-shaped cutting edge on the end of its blade. A chisel is useful for carving or cutting a hard material such as woodworking, wood, lapidary, stone, or metalworking, metal. Using a chi ...

for the insertion of two contact microphones, and a

snakewood Snakewood is a common name of several different plants: * ''Acacia'' species (family Fabaceae) in Australia, ''Acacia eremaea'', ''Acacia intorta'', ''Acacia xiphophylla'' * ''Brosimum guianense'' (= ''Piratinera guianensis'') (family Moraceae) (Le ...

soundboard laid on top with the contact microphones glued to it. A wide range of voice-like

timbre In music, timbre (), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound of a musical note, sound or tone. Timbre distinguishes sounds according to their source, such as choir voices and musical instrument ...

s can be produced, depending on the shape of the tongue and the type of wood. The tongue shape is made with a coping saw, a scroll saw, or bandsaw. Denser woods such as

ebony Ebony is a dense black/brown hardwood, coming from several species in the genus '' Diospyros'', which also includes the persimmon tree. A few ''Diospyros'' species, such as macassar and mun ebony, are dense enough to sink in water. Ebony is fin ...

and

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

produce a mellower sound than light woods. These sounds are notable for their comical, often human sounds. Another vital part is the ''dax'', sanded into a curved shape approximately 150 mm long and 50 mm tall, with a custom width tailored to the player's hands, and curved on both sides to allow for frictionless pitch changing. One side of the dax is fretted according to a random logarithmic succession, while the other is left unfretted and covered with a sheet of cardboard for a mellower sound and to preserve the surface. Two large fingerholes are drilled through the sides. Reichel has documented the construction of the instrument in a way that a skilled woodworker could build their own. Plans are downloadable fro
his website
with a collection of proven shapes for the tongue delivered in the file format of a font, thus playing on Reichel's other profession as a typeface designer. DaxoTongues.jpg, A variety of daxophone tongues

Usage

Normally, the daxophone is played by bowing the free end with a bow, most commonly a

double bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...

bow, but it can also be struck or plucked, which propagates sound in the same way a ruler halfway off a table does. Vibrations then continue to the wooden-block base, which in turn is amplified by the contact microphone(s) therein. The timbre is adjusted by where it is bowed, and where along its length it is stopped with the ''dax''. One side of the dax is fretted according to a randomly chosen logarithmic succession. The frequency interval between each fret in the succession will change due to the difference in pitch range between tongues, which is why the unfretted side is more frequently used for playing tonally in known compositions.

In popular culture

The 2022 horror film ''

Smile A smile is a facial expression formed primarily by flexing the muscles at the sides of the mouth. Some smiles include a contraction of the muscles at the corner of the eyes, an action known as a Duchenne smile. Among humans, a smile expresses d ...

'' features the daxophone as the lead instrument in its music score. The 2024 supernatural mystery film ''The Watchers'', directed by Ishana Night Shymalan and scored by Abel Korzeniowski, features daxophone on nearly every track of the score. It is the first time sections of daxophones have been used as an orchestral texture. The daxophones made for this film score were built by luthier John C.L. Jansen, and feature a new type of extended contrabass tongue, developed and built by the request of the composer.

List of daxophonists and discography

* Daniel Fishkin **You're A Strong One
Dark Listening
*

Michael Hearst Michael Marcus Hearst (born December 27, 1972) is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, writer, and producer. He is best known for his solo albums ''Songs For Ice Cream Trucks'', ''Songs For Unusual Creatures'', ''Songs For Fearful Flyers'', ''Songs ...

(born 1972) **Michael Hearst Songs For Unusual Creatures (2012) (Urban Geek Records) * Hans Reichel (1949–2011) **The Dawn of Dachsman (1987, FMP) **Shanghaied on Tor Road: The World's 1st Operetta Performed on Nothing but the Daxophone (1992, FMP CD 46) **Lower Lurum (1993/1994, Rastascan BRD 016) **Yuxo: A New Daxophone Operetta (2002, A/L/L 003) * Mark Stewart * Kazuhisa Uchihashi **King Pawns: Live in Berlin 2006 (with Hans Reichel, Innocentrecords ZEN-006) **Talking Daxophone (2018, Daxophone solo series, Innocentrecords icr-23) **Singing Daxophone (2021, Daxophone solo series 2, Innocentrecords icr-25) *

Oneohtrix Point Never Daniel Lopatin (born July 25, 1982), best known as Oneohtrix Point Never or OPN, is an American Experimental music, experimental electronic music producer, composer, singer, and songwriter. His music has utilized wikt:trope, tropes from various ...

(real name Daniel Lopatin) ** Black Snow from Age Of (2018, Warp Records via Inertia Music)

References

External links

*
Hans Reichel's FMP releasesReichel's step-by-step construction of a daxophone
* * Album by American daxophonist Daniel Fishkin, featuring some live-looped daxophone recordings
video showcasing the process of building daxophones by Daniel FishkinThe Daxophone - An Acoustic Synthesizer - Audio demonstration by Richard van Hoesel
{{Friction idiophones Individual friction plaques Bowed instruments Amplified instruments Experimental musical instruments Continuous pitch instruments