Experiments with Membranes

THIS IS SO NEAT!

Ahem! ...uh, sorry for the overflowing entheusiasm.

Kazoo

The kazoo is a modern interpretation of an African instrument, called a "mirliton" by Europeans. The "Dance of the Mirlitons" in Nutcracker was written for the kazoo! Okay, so how do you make one? There are dozens of different ways, but here's a simple example. It shouldn't take more than five minutes.

You'll need:

A short piece of pipe or tube
I use a 3 inch long piece of 3/4 inch PVC, but even an empty toilet-paper tube will work.
Some very thin, crinkly-sounding plastic
Go around to different stores and supermarket. Look for the loudest bags you can find, the ones that make lots of noise whenever you move them. Thin wax paper may work too if you wrinkle it a bit first but it's not as good and it wears out.
A rubber band or some string

Make a hole in the side of the pipe, somewhat near one end. (Don't worry about exact measurements.) Cut a piece of the plastic, about twice as wide as the end of the tube. Secure the plastic over the end of the pipe near the hole with the rubber band. It should not be too tightly stretched over the opening... wrinkles help.

That's it! Now sing, "DOO" into the little hole, or into the other end, whichever you like better.

I like to use a permanent felt-tip marker to put initials or designs on the barrel of the kazoo so the kids can tell whose is whose. Or better, try the Xerographic transfer technique to put pictures or computer graphics onto your kazoos.

Dizi

The Dizi (pronounced, "DEE-tzeh", sometimes spelled "ditz") is a Chinese flute with a unique sound. No western instrument sounds quite like it; something like a flute, an oboe, and a violin all at once. It's made just like the simple flutes I've described on my other flute pages, except for one thing. There is an extra hole between the finger holes and the embouchure, covered with a very thin membrane... just like a kazoo.

The traditional Chinese method for securing the membrane, as I've heard, was to glue it down with the juice from a clove of garlic. I haven't tried that yet but it sounds promising. I've had trouble with leaks when using just a rubber band. Making a cover for it much like a lip-plate seems to work pretty well, but I'm not sure how best to hold it down. (I'm resorting again to rubber bands.)

The sound is amazing! It's like some sort of amplification. It's much louder and has a lot of non-linear harmonics you would never ordinarily get out of a flute. Haunting...

I've even tried it successfully on some of my whistles. The effect is really beyond my capability to describe. You've just got to hear it.

A Likely Story

After some of these experiments, I began to think...

The ancient Greeks had a twin-pipe instrument called "aulos" ("pipes", duh) of which there were both sculpture showing it being played and literary reference suggesting that it sounded like a reed instrument.

The Romans must have thought it was a reed instrument. They had their own kind of twin-pipe instrument which looked similar but it was evidently much more difficult to blow. They often used a leather strap around the musician's face to hold their cheeks in. Evidently, Dizzy Galespie wasn't the first person to inflate his entire neck by blowing too hard. Some references even suggest that the Roman pipers suffered lung damage as a result.

Look at the Greek though, the relaxed face and posture. Compare that to the tight-lipped face and stiff carriage of any reed-instrument musician. Even Glen Miller couldn't look as relaxed as those ancient Greeks.

Could the original Greek aulos have had mirliton-like membranes? Might the secret of its construction have been lost under the edges of Roman swords?

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