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Speaker 1: I guess what, mango, what's that? Well, So, over the years,

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Speaker 1: we've been to so many good concerts together, also so

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Speaker 1: many bad ones together. But we were just telling a

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Speaker 1: friend the other day how we'd actually road trip to

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Speaker 1: see Fish in college. Right, Yeah, We're at a bar.

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Speaker 1: We were talking to any from Food Stuff. Well, and

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Speaker 1: the thing is is, you know, she's a little bit

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Speaker 1: younger than us, so I'm not sure she's as familiar

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Speaker 1: with some of the bands that were big and the

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Speaker 1: nineties or so. But I think she actually thought we

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Speaker 1: were going to look at Fish, like one really pretty

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Speaker 1: striped bass or something like that, But she did. I

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Speaker 1: think it's because food is always on her mind just

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Speaker 1: being the host that I didn't think about that. You're

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Speaker 1: probably right because she rode trips to see Fish as well.

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Speaker 1: But you know, just thinking back on the list of

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Speaker 1: bands that we've seen, I know we saw Lady Smith,

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Speaker 1: Black Mambazzo, George the Roots, maybe so many different shows

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Speaker 1: over the years, but there is one I'm a little

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Speaker 1: disappointed that we haven't seen, and that's the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra.

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Speaker 1: So when I hear a name like that, I feel

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Speaker 1: like it's got to be like the string cheese incident

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Speaker 1: or some sort of like you know, lesser known jam Ben.

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Speaker 1: This is not the case at all. I mean they've

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Speaker 1: been around for about twenty years now and it's pretty

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Speaker 1: incredible what they do. So the musicians actually go to

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Speaker 1: a farmer's market on the day that they're performing. Then

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Speaker 1: they pick out some vegetables in order to make their

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Speaker 1: instruments out of Like they'll make trumpets out of zucchini.

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Speaker 1: Then they'll slice up an eggplant in a way that

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Speaker 1: collapsed together all of these other fascinating instruments, and they

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Speaker 1: do this all the day at the concert. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: of course, I mean your veggies have to be fresh

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Speaker 1: when you're making instruments, you know, if you think about it.

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Speaker 1: And and then they take the parts of the veggies

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Speaker 1: that they don't use for instruments and they cook it

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Speaker 1: all into a soup. So this just takes some like

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Speaker 1: two or three hours to make the instruments, and they're

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Speaker 1: cooking this whole time, and then they have this really

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Speaker 1: long sound check because, as you might imagine, it takes

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Speaker 1: a while to tune an instrument made of vegetables. But

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Speaker 1: then they put on these shows and it's amazing mango like,

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Speaker 1: they cover everything from class school music too, of course

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Speaker 1: kraft work. You know, if you got vegetables about as,

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Speaker 1: we'll play some craft work. Yeah, German electronic music. That's

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Speaker 1: pretty cool. Yeah. And the best part is they feed

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Speaker 1: the audience the soup at the end of every concert,

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Speaker 1: so you get the music and the meal. And it

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Speaker 1: just sounds like so much. But you know, hearing about

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Speaker 1: these recorders made from carrots and these symbols made of

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Speaker 1: green peppers, and it made me think, what are other

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Speaker 1: unusual instruments that we should be keeping an ear out for?

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Speaker 1: And that's what today's nine Things is all about. So

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Speaker 1: let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, I'm Will Pearson

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Speaker 1: and as always I'm joined by my good friend man

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Speaker 1: guest Ticketer, and sitting behind the soundproof glass trying to

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Speaker 1: turn his rotary telephone into a brass instrument. I believe

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Speaker 1: he calls it a trump phone. That's our that's our

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Speaker 1: friends and producer Tristan McNeil. What a weirdo. But I

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Speaker 1: have to say I'm also a little envious that he

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Speaker 1: came up with a tromphone. But uh, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: funny that we chose today to talk about weird instruments

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Speaker 1: because I just saw this video online of a guy

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Speaker 1: playing pocabell cannon on a rubber chicken. Did you see this? No?

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Speaker 1: And how does he do that? So? I guess he

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Speaker 1: holds it in various places as he squeezes, and he

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Speaker 1: figured out how to get different tones out of this

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Speaker 1: rubber chicken. And then he shot himself in like four

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Speaker 1: different videos like doing each of the musical parts and

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Speaker 1: he sink them all up. It is ridiculous, especially like

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Speaker 1: when you consider that this is the song that people

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Speaker 1: like march down the Aisle two for weddings and graduations

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Speaker 1: and whatever. It's pretty infrontible. I kind of want to

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Speaker 1: pause right now and go check this out and then

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Speaker 1: come finished recording. But but I'll have to check that out,

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Speaker 1: all right. Well, where do you want to start with

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Speaker 1: all of these? Well? How about with the most basic

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Speaker 1: and most annoying of instruments out there? The voos a lot.

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Speaker 1: So if you're a sports fan, I'm sure you remember

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Speaker 1: the long plastic buzzing instruments from the South African World

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Speaker 1: Cup where the Zeila showed up and they irritated players

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Speaker 1: and refs and basically anyone who was watching TV, so

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Speaker 1: of course FIFA banned them from stadiums. But as I

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Speaker 1: was looking into it, it turns out the Zeila actually

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Speaker 1: has this murky origin story, like a number of people

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Speaker 1: claimed to have invented it, but the person who gets

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Speaker 1: the most credit is this guy named Freddie Saddam Make

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Speaker 1: who claims he developed the first one in the nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixties by taking off his bicycle horn and then adding

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Speaker 1: a mouthpiece to it and blowing through it. And uh,

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Speaker 1: I guess he used it as a signal to like

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Speaker 1: call people over or to get people to meet. It's

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Speaker 1: kind of like an annoying dinner gong or something. But

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Speaker 1: over time it got extended, replicated, and now they are

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Speaker 1: all these weird iterations of it, like um Hunda decided

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Speaker 1: to build the world's largest one. It was a hundred

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Speaker 1: fourteen feet long, which terrifies. Someone actually took a toy Bozela,

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Speaker 1: bedazzled it with real diamonds and gold dusted it and

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Speaker 1: then hold it to like a Russian oligarch for thirty dollars,

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Speaker 1: which just feels ridiculous and amazing. But you know that

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Speaker 1: the weirdest thing I've read about is that the plastic

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Speaker 1: instruments are actually tuned to be flat, which is funny

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Speaker 1: because to me, you know, they just sound like cacophony.

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Speaker 1: But vouzelas are in B flat. And according to space

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Speaker 1: dot com, so is a black hole that's out there.

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Speaker 1: These astronauts at NASA at the Chandra x Raight Lab,

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Speaker 1: they figured out that this giant black hole emits a

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Speaker 1: B flat note that's fifty eight octaves below middle C.

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Speaker 1: So if you lay your boozela and sampled this black hole,

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Speaker 1: it would actually harmonize pretty nicely. We'll have to we'll

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Speaker 1: have to try that out sometimes. That's pretty great. All right. Well,

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Speaker 1: here's an instrument i'd love to visit. And when I

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Speaker 1: say visit, that's because you'd have to go to Croatia

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Speaker 1: and actually on the coastal Croatia. And it's called the

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Speaker 1: Sea Organ and it was designed by this architect named

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Speaker 1: Nicola Bassage, and it's a way to gently welcome people

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Speaker 1: coming to port. And it's actually really beautiful. Now. On surface,

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Speaker 1: it looks like these giant marble steps with greats, but

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Speaker 1: beneath each one is a series of small channels that

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Speaker 1: connect thirty five organ pipes, and the way it's designed,

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Speaker 1: each step plays a slightly different musical cord. Now, because

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Speaker 1: this thing is powered by waves and by wind too,

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Speaker 1: it seems like it could get really annoying, but it

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Speaker 1: actually makes these pretty gentle and kind of random sounds.

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Speaker 1: That almost sounds like someone is touching the sides of

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Speaker 1: a steel drum or playing the wind chimes. And it

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Speaker 1: actually pairs really nicely with the calming view that's there. Oh,

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Speaker 1: that sounds really lovely. So, speaking of unusual instruments that

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Speaker 1: live on the coast, Eve's actually pointed me to the

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Speaker 1: steam whistle, which I guess is technically a whistle or instrument,

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Speaker 1: and I've never heard the origin story, and it's pretty fascinating. So,

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Speaker 1: as you guess, lighthouses didn't work that well in super

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Speaker 1: foggy conditions, like the light didn't always carry the fog bells,

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Speaker 1: which is I guess what they used to use. Also

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Speaker 1: didn't work as effective warnings over long distances. So there's

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Speaker 1: the Scottish engineer are. His name is Robert Folis, And

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Speaker 1: he was walking home on this foggy night, and as

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Speaker 1: he got closer and closer to his house, he heard

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Speaker 1: his kid playing the piano, and the higher notes were

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Speaker 1: all muffled by the fog, so he couldn't hear any

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Speaker 1: of those, but the low notes all carried in the fog.

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Speaker 1: And so he goes home he thinks about this, and

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Speaker 1: he realized, what if you created a whistle that was

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Speaker 1: powered by this superheated steam, and if it made this

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Speaker 1: very low noise, it would actually carry And the guardian

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Speaker 1: called it a fog alarm. That's how we thought about it.

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Speaker 1: And so he hooked the thing up to a clockwork

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Speaker 1: valve so it could be set to admit these noises

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Speaker 1: automatically every few minutes. And of course this's also this

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Speaker 1: manual setting, and that was useful for sending out morse

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Speaker 1: code when we wanted to do it through sound signals

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Speaker 1: instead of light signals. Yeah, that's interesting. I never thought

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Speaker 1: about lighthouse whistles being used to send out messages, but

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Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it makes a lot of sense. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. So where do you want to go

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Speaker 1: from there? Well, I feel like we've been talking about

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Speaker 1: instruments that are too mellow or beautiful or even safe,

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Speaker 1: So I think this is why it's time to bring

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Speaker 1: up the pyrophone. So I thought this was a lead

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Speaker 1: in to talk about the capiano, which I know we've

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Speaker 1: talked about before. For those of you aren't familiar with it,

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Speaker 1: it's a piano where you press the keys, and they'd

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Speaker 1: brought a little kitten behind them who would mew in

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Speaker 1: different keys. I guess I forget why was it invented? Again, though,

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Speaker 1: I think it was invented to cheer up like an

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Speaker 1: Austrian prince or something, but it took us off topic.

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Speaker 1: What's a pyrophone? Nice to be an Austrian prince and

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Speaker 1: have that kind of instrument invented for you, all right, Well,

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Speaker 1: a pyrophone. You know, when I first read about it,

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Speaker 1: it sounded like an organ for pyromaniac that has nicknames

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Speaker 1: like fire organ and explosion organs. So it sounds like

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Speaker 1: a dangerous thing, and especially when you realize it needs

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Speaker 1: propane or gasoline to run and to make it work.

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Speaker 1: There's a certain part of it actually does need to

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Speaker 1: be on fire, but it's actually way safer than that.

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Speaker 1: And essentially it uses these glass tubes and when a

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Speaker 1: fire is lit in the tubes, they vibrate to make

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Speaker 1: a sound. I mean, that sounds so much better than

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Speaker 1: like a aliment of tiny explosions, which is kind of

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Speaker 1: what I was imagining. So I'm going to talk about

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Speaker 1: the suxophone, which isn't as weird as something like a

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Speaker 1: taxidermy badger that's been turned into a theremin, which is

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Speaker 1: a real thing that you can buy on YouTube. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's some really cool electronic instruments. Like I saw someone

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Speaker 1: on YouTube and created this cabinet where you open all

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Speaker 1: the drawers and they play different notes, so that you

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Speaker 1: could actually play a cabinet. How much fun would that

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Speaker 1: p That's really awesome. I've also seen people, um they

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Speaker 1: wire up books so that if you turn to a

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Speaker 1: certain page, it has a certain frequency, so that when

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Speaker 1: you flip through the pages it plays different notes. It's

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Speaker 1: pretty crazy. But the suxophone, which I always loved because

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Speaker 1: you know exactly where it came from. It's name for

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Speaker 1: the American band leader John Philip SUSA. He actually commissioned

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Speaker 1: the instrument. But if you've ever seen a marching band play,

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Speaker 1: you know the suxophone because it's basically this distinctive tuba

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Speaker 1: like instrument. It wraps around a player's body and it

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Speaker 1: kind of blares the notes over everyone's heads and projects

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Speaker 1: it pretty far. And the way I said that makes

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Speaker 1: it sound like it's almost clunky or snake like, but

201
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Speaker 1: it's kind of like a more elegant tuba for when

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Speaker 1: you're on the move. I guess the reason I'm bringing

203
00:10:07,320 --> 00:10:10,959
Speaker 1: up is that the suxophone players are basically the cards

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Speaker 1: or jokers of marching bands. And I didn't realize this,

205
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Speaker 1: but almost anytime there's a skit or some sort of shenanigan,

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Speaker 1: it always seems to involve them. So here's a quick

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Speaker 1: list of things I found collected at one place on Wikipedia.

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Speaker 1: So when the Ohio Marching Band performs this traditional script

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Speaker 1: Ohio formation, it's the suxophone that dots the eye. It's

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Speaker 1: already like suxophones have this special place. So here's another thing.

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Speaker 1: At USC, the suxophone players play John Williams Imperial March

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Speaker 1: from Star Wars. They do this anytime they cross the street.

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Speaker 1: They go single file on their way to and from

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Speaker 1: performances on the USC campus. The University of Delaware Fighting

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Speaker 1: Blue Hens do skits. I didn't realize this, but they'll

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Speaker 1: break off from the band and run around the line

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Speaker 1: and do all these skits around the field and Virginia

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Speaker 1: Tech has their suxophones do the hokey pokey at games

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Speaker 1: where they take their suxophones out, put them in, shake

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Speaker 1: them all about. Basically, it sounds like, if you're a

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Speaker 1: kid who's really into joking around but also into the

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Speaker 1: marching bands, you should really take up the sun. That

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Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense actually, because it just sounds fun.

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Speaker 1: All right. So this is a quick one and kind

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Speaker 1: of a gross one. So have you ever seen a

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Speaker 1: Macedonian gadget? Let me, I was prepared for you to say, now,

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Speaker 1: so I'm gonna pull up this up this picture for you.

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Speaker 1: Here it is. Is he holding a goat? Yeah? So

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Speaker 1: a gadget is strange because you actually keep the animal

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Speaker 1: kind of intact, like the skin becomes the wind bag,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes, like in this version, they keep the animal's

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Speaker 1: head or hoofs attached. And these are found all over

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Speaker 1: the region and Greece and Bulgaria, Turkey, Romania. But the

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Speaker 1: sound is a lot like a bagpipe, Like it's just

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Speaker 1: one that a fan of taxidermy might have around their home,

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Speaker 1: you know, which seems like a particular person who both

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Speaker 1: likes taxidermy and the sounded bag. You know, yeah, there

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Speaker 1: there is a there's a cross section of those people

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Speaker 1: out there. So we still got two more facts to go.

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Speaker 1: But let's take a little break first. All right, to mego,

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Speaker 1: I know today's shows all about weird instruments, and you're

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Speaker 1: actually just telling me about this cool show you saw

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Speaker 1: at the Guggenheim. I guess it was this this past summer, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so I've actually forgotten about this until we started talking today.

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Speaker 1: But there was this exhibit of all these Chinese artists

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Speaker 1: called One Hand Clapping at the Gugenheim, and the art

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Speaker 1: was fascinating, like, uh, there was a VR thing where

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Speaker 1: you actually are the basketball and Jeremy Lynn is dribbling

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Speaker 1: you around and then shoots you as a three pointers.

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Speaker 1: It's insane and you're just sort of like flying through

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Speaker 1: the air and you feel yourself going through the net.

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Speaker 1: It's amazing. But there are all these incredible installations and things,

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Speaker 1: and the thing that really kind of stuck with me

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Speaker 1: was from this artist named Sampson Young. He had this

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Speaker 1: giant mouthpiece that was just put on the wall and

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Speaker 1: he had molded it for an enormous brass instrument, and

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Speaker 1: if you built the rest of that trumpet. I guess

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Speaker 1: it would have been like twenty ft long and about

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Speaker 1: eight or nine feet high, and every five minutes or so,

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Speaker 1: there was a concert where he'd created these programs on

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Speaker 1: the computer to model the sounds, so it would be

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Speaker 1: this like deep booming revelie for that trumpet that would

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Speaker 1: just like kind of shake the room where um he

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Speaker 1: had invented this bugle and wondered what it would sound

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Speaker 1: like if you blew through it at a temperature of

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Speaker 1: three degrees celsius. And it was really cool, but it

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Speaker 1: was like a It was this mix of super fantastical

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Speaker 1: and whimsical instruments that you could never build in real life,

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Speaker 1: but with real sounds generated from computers. It was a

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Speaker 1: really funny experience. I love the idea that you would

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Speaker 1: just be curious, like I wonder what a bugle sounds

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Speaker 1: like when you blow through it at a temperature of

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Speaker 1: three hundred degrees Like this just such a I think

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Speaker 1: he went to m I t hears something. He's he's

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Speaker 1: definitely got this scientific mind as well. That's pretty cool.

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Speaker 1: I'm curious though, like was the music any good? I

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Speaker 1: mean I wouldn't say good so much as interesting, but

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Speaker 1: but it was definitely worth visiting anyway. But where do

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Speaker 1: you want to finish this off? Well, speaking of interesting

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Speaker 1: and theoretically possible but also hard to pull off, I

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Speaker 1: feel like we should talk about the Helicopter string Quartet. Now.

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Speaker 1: This was written by Karl Heinz Stockhausing and it's got

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Speaker 1: this weird story behind it. So apparently stock Housing got

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Speaker 1: this commission for a string quartet and he wasn't that

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Speaker 1: interested in it, but then he had this crazy dream

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Speaker 1: where he was at a party and someone snubbed him

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Speaker 1: and he was so mad that he flew away, and

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Speaker 1: beneath him were these four helicopters that each carried a

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Speaker 1: member of a string quartet and they were all playing together.

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Speaker 1: So then he has this follow up dream, of course,

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Speaker 1: where he wanted to add bees to it. And I

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Speaker 1: don't know if the bees ever make it in the

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Speaker 1: real performance, but he liked that extra bu thing they

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Speaker 1: added to the helicopter rotors. I think, of course, you know,

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Speaker 1: this is how you dream when you're a brilliant composer.

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Speaker 1: But the piece he finally wrote is this elaborate and

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Speaker 1: very expensive to perform thing. But basically it starts out

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Speaker 1: in a music hall with four pillars, and for some

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Speaker 1: reason you need the pillars. And then the members walk

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Speaker 1: into four helicopters and take off and circle a radius

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Speaker 1: of six kilometers around the hall. And this is all

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Speaker 1: televised down to the audience. Not Also, every helicopter needs

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Speaker 1: a sound technician in it so that the sounds of

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Speaker 1: the choppers are blended with the sounds of the quartet.

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Speaker 1: And I know this all sounds very confusing, and it

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Speaker 1: is very very confusing, but it's also fantastic. And the

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Speaker 1: gist of it is, if you're writing a composition and

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Speaker 1: you don't have helicopters in it, you're probably just not

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Speaker 1: thinking big enough, you know, Mango, Yeah, that's probably true.

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Speaker 1: I feel like it is a good way to get

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Speaker 1: people into classical music though, right, Like, if you're into helicopters,

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Speaker 1: you should be into music this But you know, because

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Speaker 1: you did a composition, I think I'm gonna end mind

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Speaker 1: with a weird composition as well. And this one's by

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Speaker 1: John Cage who composed four thirty three, which is that

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Speaker 1: composition of total silence and it's performed at a piano

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Speaker 1: with no sound. You know, that was a response to music.

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Speaker 1: The story is actually fascinating. People should look it up.

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Speaker 1: But I wanted to talk about a different song he wrote,

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Speaker 1: and this one's called as Slow as Possible, And while

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Speaker 1: it's meant to be played slowly, there's really no specification

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Speaker 1: on just how slow it should go. So the slowest

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Speaker 1: current performance of this starting in two thousand one at

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Speaker 1: this old church in Germany, and it's supposed to end

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Speaker 1: in so it's actually gonna take six hundred thirty nine

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Speaker 1: years to perform, and if you visit the church, you'll

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Speaker 1: actually have to wait a few months before accord even changes.

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Speaker 1: So you know, it's momentous when it does, and people

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Speaker 1: are excited when that happens. But apparently the reason they

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Speaker 1: chose that length of six nine years is partially because

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Speaker 1: that's about the lifespan they could hope for for a

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Speaker 1: newly refurbished organ, and the instrument might breakdown after that point.

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Speaker 1: But you know, if that was the case, they might

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Speaker 1: actually have tried to drag it out for longer. That's

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Speaker 1: pretty great. Well, you know, I like the fact that

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Speaker 1: you've given us something to look forward to over the

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Speaker 1: next six d and thirty nine years. You know, we

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Speaker 1: can check in on it every year. See how it's going. So, um,

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Speaker 1: you know what I think. I'm going to give you

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Speaker 1: today's fact Off Trophy. Congratulations. That sounds great. Thank you

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Speaker 1: so much, and thanks as always to Eaves Jeff Code

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Speaker 1: for her brilliant research. Thank you guys for listening. We'll

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Speaker 1: be back with a full length episode tomorrow