If the six strings on your plain ol’ guitar just doesn’t cut it anymore, then Yuri Landman has the solution: a twelve-string instrument called the Home Swinger, capable of complex tones that your run-of-the-mill acoustic may not achieve.

Landman, from the Netherlands, created the Home Swinger instrument, a spinoff of a previous instrument of his called the Mood Swinger. He created the first Home Swinger last year. It took Landman all of two hours to complete his latest instrument when the inspiration struck.

In 2008 I designed the Moodswinger II for Jessie Stein of the Luyas, That one was 5 kilo and the most perfect version so far. The Moodswinger cost about 1000 Euro and not many experimental musicians have that amount of money for such odd instruments available. The final solution came accidentally. I got a request from a festival organiser in Belfast, UK. He asked me if I could do something with a workshop and I started brainstorming. ‘If I take 1 piece of wood and add 2 pieces to make it more solid and another one for the tuning pegs, than the Moodswinger could exist in its most rudimentary way.

This accidental discovery is one that Landman now shares in workshops around the world. One such workshop was held at the Knitting Factory, here in Brooklyn New York. It drew a small but talented crowd, all of whom had been in search of a new sound. The engineering seemed a bit complex to me, but Landman assures it’s as easy as putting together Ikea furniture.

The Home Swinger is derived from the Moodswinger, because it is a DIY version of your instrument you can easily build like you do when you buy an IKEA-closet. It’s based on the IKEA concept of predrilled wood pieces. Even the brochure is flirting with the IKEA image.

I hung out with the group, watching/photographing while they got their hands dirty creating their very own instruments from scratch (literally).

Jessie Stein, visiting New York from Montreal, is part of a band called The Luyas. Stein already owns the Mood Swinger, another one of Landman’s design, but still thought it’d be fun to create another while she was in New York.

Su Polo, a talented guitarist and poet who scoured the internet for something new and different, found this and decided she couldn’t wait to get one of her own.

Pat Noecker, a Brooklyn native and musician from the band, These Are Powers. Noecker, a bass player,  said he has been working on modifying his own instrument. So he’s joined forces with Landman in search of different sound. Noecker is yet to play the Home Swing with his band, These Are Powers. Like everyone else, however, he is excited about the instrument, declaring for all to hear that the guitar is “so last century.”

Bryant Davis, a student of Design Technology at Parson’s is also a guitarist. He started a band in lieu of a midterm assignment for one of his classes. “I am the one that makes all the noise,” Davis said. “It came naturally that I started sticking things in my guitar.” Since that didn’t quite do the trick, Davis took Landman’s workshop in order to create something different.

Listen to some of the DIYers talking about the instrument.

The cost of admission into Landman’s Brooklyn workshop was $140.00. Pricey? That depends; think how cool it could be to own a unique instrument that you create with your very own hands. While Landman’s workshop has moved on to other American cities and even other countries, I’d imagine he could be persuaded to set up another workshop if you asked nicely.

To get a feel for what the Home Swing sounds like, play the track below. Full disclosure – it’s The Luyas on the Mood Swinger, but the Home Swing sounds just like it.

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