David Stonehouse News

Stones get a new Canadian sound

Keith Richards to try out 'wacky' instrument invented by two Maritime math professors

By David Stonehouse

Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards will soon be plucking at the strings of a brand-spanking new, made-in-Canada musical instrument -- the tritar.

"I can hardly wait to see him strap it on and play it," says George Rizsanyi, the guitar maker from Nova Scotia who will deliver the funky-looking instrument right to the legendary rocker's door next month. "He's gonna go, 'What the f--k is this? What do you got there?' "

The tritar looks like an electric guitar from some futuristic alien planet -- sleek, three-headed and oddly Y-shaped. Its sound is schizophrenic -- guitar-like one moment, distinctly bells and a hint of bongos the next.

This creation -- which gets its name from its three rows of strings that intersect at the nook of the Y -- is the brainchild of two mathematics professors in New Brunswick who had set out, not to create new music, but to solve a problem that has stumped the math world since the 18th century.

And it has clearly jazzed Mr. Rizsanyi, who handcrafts guitars for the likes of Peter Gabriel and Sting. He turned the professors' crude prototype into a gleaming vision of Nova Scotia bird's-eye maple and African padouk.

"There are infinite possibilities. You have to approach it with an open mind because it is an open book -- you can create just about anything you want on it as far as music goes. It will create a whole new kind of music that we have never heard before," he says from his shop near Bridgewater, N.S.

This musical revolution he plans to bring with him to Mr. Richards' home in Weston, Connecticut. In one hand, he will carry a Rizsanyi guitar belonging to the rocker -- freshly repaired after it splintered when someone fell into it. In his other hand he'll be carrying the tritar. He figures the famous rocker will take to the tritar instantly -- if for no other reason than novelty. "Keith likes really wacky stuff, so I think he would be very intrigued by it," Mr. Rizsanyi says. "Whether it would go any further, I can't say for Keith. But I think he will get a real kick out of it."

Samuel Gaudet is getting a real kick, too, out of the idea that Mr. Richards will soon be ripping off chords on the tritar.

"I know he collects instruments. From a collector's point of view, I assume that he would be interested. I don't know if he will ever play it onstage with the Stones, though. If he does, man -- talk about things taking off," says Mr. Gaudet, a 37-year-old math professor at the Universite de Moncton, who collaborated with colleague Claude Gauthier to invent the instrument.

They have patents in the works and hope the tritar makes a big splash on the music market. Already, they are thinking of an acoustic version, perhaps even a tritar violin.

Mr. Gaudet is learning to play on the fly. "I haven't tried Led Zeppelin," he says, "but I have learned the riff to the Bridge of Sighs by Robin Trower." He's also tried a bit of Bach and some of his own melodies.

It all started without even a hint of music. A decade ago, Mr. Gauthier began working on a new number system he hoped would help solve a problem that has puzzled mathematicians for a few centuries.

He was trying to determine the sum of a particular infinite series of fractions. That led him to study the symmetry in strings of numbers, and then to experiment with the symmetry and acoustic properties of guitar strings. Along the way, he brought Mr. Gaudet on board, and they began experimenting with variations on the guitar.

Working in his basement, Mr. Gauthier, 50, built various prototypes from plywood and spools of guitar string. Often, his two young daughters -- now ages eight and five -- would tinker alongside him. "It was really funny: 'Dad, try this -- try that.' "

Early this year, the two professors turned to Mr. Rizsanyi in the hopes he would agree to fashion an instrument of elegance from the crudeness of their prototypes. "Upon first glimpse, I was not moved," Mr. Rizsanyi recalls. "But I always sleep on things. It took me a week or so to start thinking, 'This could be interesting'."

Now he is an unabashed fan, and is convinced the tritar can catch on among innovative musicians. "You get it into a really creative person's hands and they are going to go to the moon with it," he says. And he is an enthusiastic booster of the men behind the instrument for a new age.

"When you think of math professors, you always think of some kind of stodgy old fella locked up in his office working on formulas. But these guys are definitely not cut from the same cloth. I love their open-mindedness," Mr. Rizsanyi says. "Samuel and Claude are definitely the math professors of the future."

The university thinks so, too. Its recruiters plan to take the tritar on the road, hoping its edgy design and unusual music will lure teens into math and sciences.