Japan
Nihon Hanabue Kyokai Ise Tomo no Kai
These user manuals were published by the Japanese Nose Flute Ise Association for the nose flutes made by Mr. Takuma Ikeyama.
On-Lak nose flute:
China
No name Humanatone copy
Note how this user manual is a counterfeit of the official Humanatone user-manual (just below the chinese one), which itself remained (almost) the same since the origins! So, the text of the chinese copy is (almost) the same than the one that was published by J. Stivers in the 1900's !
United States of America
Hum-A-Tune
These Humanatone copies were were made in Hong-Kong, but sold in the USA under an american licence.
Note the spelling mistake "nostrile" appearing on the first Hum-A-Tune and on the 1969 Bullwinkle's Hum-A-Tune. The mistake was corrected afterwards, in the later Hum-A-Tune manual.
Note that the text was very probably "inspired" by the Humanatone text. It's not a plagiarism, but the same words were mixed in a different order.
Humanatone
This user manual was probably published in the 1920's by the Humanatone Company. The specific part explaining how to blow the nose flute was re-used by the Fred Gretsch Mfg Co. in the 40's and until the brand was sold to Grover-Trophy Music. Trophy Music re-used again the same text, just modified it a bit, and it is still printed on the individual small bags.
Metal Humanatone by the Humanatone Co.:
Plastic Humanatone by the Gretsch Co. in the 40's:
Here the text is different. It seems that Gretsch quickly went back to the original one, after this series of nose flute specially dedicated to be sent to the Boys fighting in the Pacific.
Metal Humanatone by the Gretsch Co. (made in Japan):
Plastic Humanatone by the Gretsch Co. in the 50's:
Plastic Humanatone by the Trophy Music Co., nowadays:
Dr B.B.Bumstead user manual
This user manual was provided with the Humanatones branded by the Dr. B.B.Bumstead, in the 1980's:
South Africa
Claritone (Bocarina)
Claritone was the first name of the Bocarina. Here is a detailed user manual distributed by Dr. Bruce Copley.
I find the last manual, by Dr Bruce Copley (Doctor in ...?), the most interesting of this batch, as he talks about singing and humming whilst playing the nose flute simultaneously. He also names "accompanying oneself", "overtones", "harmonics" and even "triple tonguing" as possible techniques.
ReplyDeleteThis man clearly knows a thing or two about music as well as the nose flute! Interestingly, an extra octave can be added to the four as mentioned by applying "whisper tones".