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 whe ...

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

Université de Moncton The Université de Moncton is a Canadian French-language 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 hig ...

of a family of

stringed instrument In musical instrument classification, string instruments, or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer strums, plucks, strikes or sounds the strings in varying manners. Musicians play so ...

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 In physics, acoustics, and telecommunications, a harmonic is a sinusoidal wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the ''fundamental frequency'' of a periodic signal. The fundamental frequency is also called the ''1st har ...

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 percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

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 br ...

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.

Footnotes

References

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