Avediphone is the woodwind instrument created especially for the piece ‘Yenikapı’. It consists of three major parts. A mouthpiece, which is an alto saxophone mouthpiece, PVC pipes as the body of the instrument, and a resonator can.
There are two different types of PVC pipes with different diameters used in this instrument. One has a diameter of 1.75cm. and the other 1.5cm. So the reason behind that is the glissando sound that I was in search of. This glissando sound is established by interwoven pipes that I mentioned above. The narrower PVC pipe glides inside the big one. As the total length of the pipes grow we get a lower pitch created by the instrument.
If we start to analyze the instrument in a detailed way;
First we get an alto saxophone mouthpiece, which was one of the most compatible mouthpiece for a PVC pipe among all other instruments. After getting this clear, I started to visit the PVC pipe shops with my mouthpiece, to detect the most compatible diameter. During the production process, I had some difficulties because of the diameters that were available. The narrower PVC pipe was not quite in the measurements that I was looking for. So I tried to overcome this issue with the help of duct tape. The idea was simple but it worked perfectly. I strapped all the pipe with the help of a duct tape thus I got a pipe with a slightly bigger diameter which was perfect for me.
Creating an instrument, as I firmly realised during the production of avedimba as well, is an autoregressive process. Before the production, my main intention was to build avediphone as a uniaxial instrument as a flute. But over time I understood that, it was almost impossible to use the instrument (drag the smaller pipe within the bigger pipe) with human conditions. The interval that I was planning to get was a perfect fourth, and the pitches that I was planning to hear were bass notes as well (E2-F2-G2-A2). So I found the solution in the a use of a corner pipe. Thus it made the instrument playable in terms of human conditions. Once the mouthpiece and the corner pipe joined together, now I was ready to think about the main pipes which I was planning to create different pitches by using them. After the solution of duct tape, now it was possible to drag the smaller pipe within the big one without any air leakage. After this condition was provided, I tried to decide the length of the pipes without any previous knowledge about the open and closed pipe modes. Therefore an empirical process began. Following several experiments that I made, I was able to decide the proper length of the pipes. After the shaping of them, I drew lines to the inner PVC pipe which correspond to the notes (E2, F2, G2, A2) to show the player the exact pitch that ze is playing.
As a result, avediphone was able to produce a perfect fourth interval in second octave within a limitless pitch option. Glissandos and all Hz values in that region were able to be played now, but there was room for one last improvement.
To enhance the loudness of the instrument, I attached a resonator can (a coke can with an open end), which actually worked quite decently. But as a feedback of this improvement I also updated the lenghts of the pipes as well.
Figure 2.1: Detached and assembled avediphone.
Figure 2.2: Detached avediphone with the insider tube marked with pitch markings.