An Old Typewriter Turned into a Steampunk Musical Instrument

Pretty much everybody loves steampunk gadgetry, or at least feels a special attraction towards a certain type of steampunk gear, be it kitchenware, watches, and all sorts of useful or completely futile gadgets; the steampunk technology is something rather fascinating precisely because it involves someone thinking outside the box and giving completely new uses and functions to the most (un)common objects.

Having made this brief introduction, let's greet one of the newest steampunk (almost) musical instruments, the Typesonic, a Diego Stucco creation. Its name speaks for itself: we're dealing with a typewriter turned into a weird musical instrument.

Now, if DIY is what we see first, we’re looking at a truly great piece of technology: mixing together the typewriting and the somehow related hammering on strings, made easy, one could say. As you can see in this video, Mr. Stucco has been really creative as far as changing the purpose of some pieces inside the typing machine is concerned. Of course, not all the keys work (the machinery is pretty old, as he himself tells us): even more, the Typesonic only comes with a few strings, making it unnecessary for all the keys to work.

Additional commands have been also designed, like the "shift" key and the large left-hand lever: if in the glory days of this typewriter the latter would bring you to the beginning of the line, now its purpose is to lift up the whole string board so you can hammer on some higher notes. Everything, of course, moves in a most bizarre manner, living up to the most exigent steampunk standards.

There isn't too much music in this piece of machinery: there are a few strings and their notes can be slightly altered by the bending action of the shift key. Far from being designed for musical virtuosity, the Typesonic rather stands tall as proof of what imagination can do; though one visionary music writer could actually find some use for the twisted industrial sounds it is capable of producing.


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