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OT Children's toy instruments for looping



After I took Ryusei and Hideki back to the San Francisco airport
to send them back to Japan <wipes tear away>  I decided to treat
myself to a completely and utterly sleep deprived and festival overwhelmed
day in the city since I was so close.

I love going to Haight Ashbury to shop so I went there and found a great 
instrument
at a toy store there called a Water Trumpet.     It's shaped like a 
trumpet but it has
five clear plastic water pipes (with side markings for tuning with the 
level of water you put into it).

You blow through it but it won't sound until you open the trumpet 
'valve'  to basically
blow the panpipe styled whistle.

It doesn't sound like a trumpet at all, but , even better,   it sounds 
like those really
cheap 50's and 60's air portable electric pipe organs.

I put it under the water and let the pipes fill up at random intervals 
which forced a
really cool found scale.   I just love found scales and you can play it 
polyphonically as well.

   I just recorded a snippet so you can hear the
sounds.  

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/283659/TOY%20WATER%20TRUMPET%20demo.WAV

The wheezing is my reactive airwave disease that I've had all my life
reacting to the over the top amount of pollen in the air we're having 
after this ridiculous
heatwave that hit Santa Cruz after the loopers left.  It was 90 degrees 
yesterday but cooled
off today.   The pollen is covering the windshields of our car after 
having cleaned them on Wednesday.

Also,  I went to the website of a company that carries this cool kiddie 
instrument and found a plethora
of cool toy instruments, including those wonderful tuned bells that I 
play a lot in concert.   People always ask
me where I got them and here is where you can buy a little set.   They 
also have a very hip looking toy banjo
for sale that I think I"m going to spring for.........it's really 
inexpensive.

http://www.stewarttoys.com/category/musicalinstruments/

enjoy!!

Rick Walker