Flexatone

The Flexatone is a musical instrument that belongs to the group of Idiophone. The name comes from the English: to flex a tone = a tone bend.

It looks like a spatula or a trowel with handle and two attached to it lacemaking. The tone of the Flexatone is produced by hitting the clapper against the metal plate.

Due to varying degrees of pressure with the thumb on the spring steel plate, the sound is increased or decreased. Bending of steel plate leads to a structural change in the molecule structure, thereby changing the hardness and thus the resonance characteristic of the sound-producing steel plate ( similar to a Tonzunge ).

Game modes: Normally, the Flexatone is shaken, so that the two clapper from the bottom and beat up ( Sample below), where the shaking is of course freely chosen by the musicians against the spring plate.

Rare is the unique hitting the spring plate with an external mallet. This can be heard, for example, in the song " I Can not Dance" by Genesis from bar 4.

Sound: The vibrating plate of the flexatones widespread light - excited or melancholic subtle tones. The sound is similar to a mixture of a musical saw and a doorbell.

Use: The Flexatone is often used as an effect tool in radio drama and theater, but was orchestrated in orchestral works by Arnold Schoenberg, Gyorgy Ligeti, Dmitri Shostakovich and Alfred Schnittke. A prominent appearance it has in the second movement of the piano concerto of Aram Khachaturian, where it doubled over long distances the melody. It is also occasionally be heard in some bands in the field of popular music genres Dancehall and Reggae.

• Sample Flexatone? / I

• Idiophone