Burner Harp Guitar

The Burner Harp Guitar is probably my instrument with the most references to all kinds of other instruments. The first one was made for Finn Andrews of The Veils. The instrument is the 2.0 version of Lee Ranaldo’s Moonlander, and it is equal to Enon’s Twister concerning the bridge & pickup configuration. Like mentioned before that tailed bridge guitar as well as the most of my hand instruments were on their turn visually inspired on the Vox Teardrop and Phantom and the off waist guitars of Fender, the Jaguar and the Jazzmaster. Like the predecessors the 9 tuning pegs have a link with the Greek Bouzouki and all other types of coursed string instruments.

The Burner Guitar is an electric Harp Guitar, and a bit similar to the famous Coral Sitar, but on the Burner Guitar the harp field is amplified and the regular neck is normal without a buzzing bridge like on that odd sixties instrument. The extra harp field is enhanced with a movable capodaster bridge, which also can be used as an 8-string mini-Moodswinger if the capo is used as a third bridge and the strings are strucked at the opposed string part. Again the color dotted serie specifies the harmonic knotted positions similar like on most of my instruments without a fretboard.

There is visual a resemblance with Prince’s Yellow Cloud Guitar, most famous for being used in the Purple Rain movie clip.

I think the instrument works fine on stage, but is mainly appropriate for studio sessions, where you can take your time on the multiple channels and also I prefer to play it sitting to take care of all the strings and where to pluck them. The range of the timbre is very broad. It can sound like screaming Sonic Youth or a like a banjo or like a koto or a harp or many other sounds, depending on how your set-up is. The output configuration is not as difficult as it might look.

Tuning

For Finn I tried out a different string set-up on the guitar field. I stringed it EEE-ADG-GGG for easy switching between major and minor chords with the outside sections, muting the middle section. The EEE sounded very much like a Chorus, but friendlier natural, without the annoying continuous sinus wave caused by the pedal.

The harp section consists of wound strings tuned in a do-re-mi range. Perhaps unwound strings are more suitable and and open chord or a pentatonic scale can be a bit easier to play on. Something we have to figure out still.

I’m currently making 3 copies for Javiero Gimeno from Barcelona, Jay Malhotra from the UK and one for myself. Red, Green and Blue.

The adapted bass guitar for These Are Powers will have quiet a similar body shape, but with some other features on it.

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