Don Rickert Musical Instruments

Reinventing the Wheel and Musical Instrument Design

In response to one of my recent posts, a short "teaser" article for a new line of free reed instruments by Don Rickert Design, my friend David Mills commented that he once proposed the idea of replacing the bellows of organ-type free reed instruments with a foot-powered air pump and was accused of simply reinventing the harmonium. I am sure that we will be similarly criticized. Anyway, David's much-appreciated comment inspired this short article. I hope that you find it thought-provoking at least entertaining. "Reinventing the wheel" (and similar phrases like "reinventing the harmonium" or "reinventing the violin") is an English metaphorical idiom of unknown origin. There are varying definitions; however, the fundamental idea is that to reinvent the wheel, metaphorically of course, is to waste one's time inventing something that has already been invented AND has been PERFECTED. In the corporate world, as well as academe, both of which I am intimately familiar, dreamers are often cut down in their tracks with the admonition from some arrogant fool and his or her sycophants: "Don't reinvent the wheel!" In addition demonstrating lack of imagination by use of a hackneyed cliche, the "Don't reinvent the wheel" admonition is usually inappropriately used, reflecting even more poorly on the admonisher. There is that pesky perfection criterion, you see. Unless one really knows that an existing contraption or idea that is supposedly being reinvented cannot be improved, the key criterion for legitimate use of the "Don't reinvent the wheel" phrase has NOT been met!... Read more →

Video of Dr. Rickert Installing Pure Gut Strings: UPDATE

Yesterday (Saturday, June 11) we shot most of the video of Dr. Rickert of Don Rickert Design installing 18th Century type gut strings (copper wound g string and unwound pure gut d', a' and e' strings) on a an 1780s style pochette. We were also shooting video for a demonstration of the use of basso continuo fiddle accompaniment using our new foot pump bass/chord/drone box (we have not named it yet), a free reed instrument similar to an Indian shruti box that runs on compressed air supplied by a powerful foot bellows rather than the traditional hand bellows of shruti boxes and harmoniums. both videos will be available on YouTube in several days Read more →

Video of Dr. Rickert Installing Pure Gut Strings on a Pochette

On Saturday, June 11, we will be shooting video of Dr. Rickert of Don Rickert Design installing 18th Century type gut strings (copper wound g string and unwound pure gut d', a' and e' strings) on a short bodied (but 4/4 playable scale) pochette. The principles apply to the installation of gut strings on any fiddle. The demonstration will include essential modification to the tailpiece, proper grooving of the nut and the right way to wind pure gut strings on the tuning pegs. If you want to learn to do it right so the strings do not slip on the pegs or break in the peg box or at the nut and tailpiece, you MUST watch this video. As far as keeping the old style strings in tune, especially during the summer months...good luck with that! A reasonable goal is to be able to play at least as much time as you spend tuning. We will post the link when the video is on YouTube. Read more →