The Saddest Instrument

Two threads stretched across the night. Rest a finger on one and glide: the note follows your hand, with no keys and no frets, like a voice that hesitates. Rise, and the sound swells. Sink, and it withdraws.

The Saddest Instrument is a real instrument, made for melancholy. Its timbre lies somewhere between a voice and a bow. It plays only night scales, and every note leaves behind a luminous matter, born from the harmonics you make ring.

Play
Sideways, the note. Higher, louder. Two threads, and up to four voices at once. Along each thread, moons mark the notes, and an adjustable magnetism draws your glide toward them: you play in tune from the first minute, then set your hand free when it is ready.

Listen
Each time it opens, the instrument plays a short excerpt on its own: Chopin's Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 and Prelude Op. 28 No. 4, Rachmaninoff's Vocalise, Mozart's Lacrimosa, Purcell's Dido's Lament. Rest a finger and it falls silent to listen to you.

Settings without words
The veil of settings speaks only in moon figures. Nine scales: minor, harmonic minor, Dorian, Phrygian, hijaz, Hungarian minor, Ukrainian Dorian, hirajoshi, miyako-bushi. Twelve tonics, the register of each thread, a sustain that lets notes ring, space, and a timbre that goes from muted to raw.

Film
A ring in the corner films the threads and their sound, up to three minutes. Keep the film in Photos or share it, in landscape or in portrait for social media, the instrument's name written at the bottom.

On iPhone, iPad and Mac
On iPhone, the instrument lies in landscape. On iPad, it plays any way round. On Mac, rest up to four fingers on the trackpad without clicking: the upper half plays the upper thread. One purchase for all three.

Nothing else
No account, no ads, no subscription, no data collected. It works offline. Put on headphones, turn off the light.