When musician Dan Orcutt’s expensive brand-name guitar turned out to be a lemon, he decided to make his own.
“I always made stuff,” explains Orcutt, who’s been playing around Ann Arbor since the 1980s. “I’m a handy sort of guy.” When his first guitar was a success, he was encouraged to try other, more unusual instruments. In addition to three more guitars, he’s built a pair of electric cellos and two “harptars,” combining elements of a harp and a guitar. Whether performing with his rock trio, Nick Strange, or with his more acoustic side project, the Big Blue Cosmic, he rarely touches a manufactured instrument.
Orcutt was inspired to build his electric cellos after seeing Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page use a violin bow on his electric guitar during the song “Dazed and Confused.” They’re basically cello necks with a fret board but no acoustic body, and Orcutt uses them for quasi-classical and Indian-influenced pieces. The two cellos share a soaring and full-bodied sound when amplified.
The harptars are partially based on a similar instrument used by jazz guitarist John McLaughlin. They have futuristic-looking wide bodies that combine a six-string electric guitar neck on top and a seventeen-string “harp” section below. Orcutt uses the harp strings to play melodies alongside his guitar phrasings. He calls the instrument “a little orchestra,” and its full, rich notes play a big role in his more reflective songs.
Orcutt is almost entirely self-taught on all his instruments. While he stresses that he built them only as tools to write and perform with, he appreciates the range they add when he does solo acoustic performances.
Despite the harptar’s twenty-three strings, Orcutt says it is actually pretty easy to tune, if a little tedious. But even after years of playing, he has yet to fully master it: “On the harp I’m still learning,” he admits. “These things are experiments in musical evolution.”
