The Omstrument — Heaven or Hell?
The Omstrument — by Jack Haas
What do you get when you combine a harp, a tanpura, a dulcimer, a guitar and a strumstick?
The Omstrument, of course. 
Let’s get the negativity out of the way, first.
Hell — What’s Bad?
46 strings!
Imagine preparing for an important performance or recording session — where you really need/want to sound your best. I dislike, no, scratch that, hate changing strings on my guitar. The mere thought of having to change 46 strings gives me nightmares.
Tuning/Intonation
String instruments get out of tune. Period. Nothing you can do about it.
The more strings you have to deal with, the more you need to fiddle with keeping them in tune. Personally, I prefer playing to tuning.
Transportation
Looks like a beast to carry around. I guess it’s time to exchange my Ferrari for a Minivan. (just kidding and I don’t mean my Ferrari 
)
Enough of the whining already — onwards to the good stuff!
Heaven — This is Om
Coolness Factor
I don’t know about you, but to me the Omstrument just scores big time in coolness. It’s original, unusual, exotic, and there’s enough guitar shaped instruments assembled to get my fingers itching just from looking at the thing.
46 Strings and the Glorious Sound!
Huh, wasn’t that part of the bad already?
Yes, it was. Thank you for your attentive reading. But besides the negative aspects already mentioned, there’s the sound and the possibilities you get with 46 strings. A symphony of resonance, vibration and tonal colors.
The Omstrument in Action
Check out the inventor Jack Haas playing one of his compositions on his Omstrument:
Big thumbs up from me for the creative fusion of string instruments.
Have you seen any similar or other unusual instruments? If so, please, feel free to share your findings.
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- Challenge of the Month — November 2009
- Challenge of the Month — January/February 2010
- Learn to Play Chord Melody — The Major Family
Tagged with: dulcimer • Guitar • harp • omstrument • strumstick • tanpura
Filed under: Instruments • Music
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Whoa...
I’m having troubles with the 6 strings of my guitar and can’t imagine how it’s possible to switch between all those instruments and keep it musical.
Even though I definitely won’t be getting one for myself, I’m curious.
The Omstrument must cost quite a lot. Any ideas on the price tag?
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Twitter:markozirkovich
Hey Joe,
I know how you feel. Guitar can be quite an overwhelming instrument in itself.
To be honest, I don’t know if Jack Haas even thinks about selling the Omstrument, so I have no idea about the price.
If you do own some string instruments, why not experiment with some sort of set-up (strap — holder combo) that let’s you switch between instruments?!?
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Thanks Marko for the great post. I’ve been playing for 32 years but never strayed away from standard tuning. Sounds like he is using an open D chord for all the instruments. I have an acoustic and a grand daddy strumstick so I’ll have to give this a try!
thanks,
Jeff
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Twitter:markozirkovich
Hi Jeff,
Good call, it’s definitely sounding D-ish.
I totally admire and envy players who are comfortable in many different tunings. I’ve had a challenging time to learn my orientation in standard tuning.
But I’m thinking about getting another acoustic guitar just to start exploring the DADGAD tuning. A dedicated guitar probably is the only way for me to getting comfortable with the new tuning. Otherwise the constant re-tuning would drive me crazy.
To be honest, before finding the Omstrument video clip on YouTube I didn’t know about the strumstick.
Let me know how your combination experiment works out, ok?!
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