To play the instrument, I pulled a DC motor, pulley, belt, and tension wheels from an old videocassette rewinder and mounted them to the face. The center wheel has a hand-cut wooden gear attached, which is a reference to an early design, which had the Hexachord powered by hand crank and a series of wooden gears. (I've done several geared projects since then, including a geared noisemaker, and a beveled gear fidget bracelet.) The gear is base for the plectrum arm, which has a guitar pick attached to a zip tie. I initially had the pick attached directly the wood, but the pick was too rigid without the flexibility of a musician's fingers, and the arm was frequently stopped by the tense strings.

The motor is powered by a variable AC-DC converter, so the speed can be changed.