Working with a Pocket Knife

We already posted (here) a video provided as a supplement of a book dealing with making toys and instruments with a pocket knife. But now, we've go the book.




Werken mit dem Taschenmesser ("Working with a Pocket Knife") is a Swiss book, published by AT Verlag and apparently sponsored by Victorinox, the famous Swiss army pocket knife company. The idea of the author Felix Immler is to make many (twenty six) objects from wood found in the forrest and worked only with a (multi-tool) pocket knife. After a part dedicated to learning the different knife tools usage, the tutorials, range from "beginner" to "expert". This last section features a Nasenflöte.



Seven pages are dedicated to the nose flute making, but I obviously cannot publish them "full size", for copyright reasons. However, let's take the risk to show some pictures, as advertising samples.






As you can see, the tutorial is fully illustrated, with explicit pictures. The texts also are clear and precise, as far as you read German or, as I did, scan them, pass the result through an OCR tool, then stuff Google translation with. The description of the work is precise, providing dimensions etc.

Even if you don't feel the need to rush in the woods with your pocket knife with the irrepressible need to carve a nose flute, the method provided by Felix Immler can be very useful for those of you who would like to take the time to build their own wooden nose flute, in the comfort of a workshop and with the help of precise tools.



You can buy
Werken mit dem Taschenmesser directly from the publisher (here) or cheaper from Amazon (new or used), particulary the German one.

Here is the video supplied in complement of the book:

My Neighbor Totoro - Udon817

A still video (including a very nice drawing of a Humanatone) by Udon817. The soundtrack is played with one ukulele and two nose flute tracks (actually Humanatone). The music is My Neighbor Totoro theme, a famous Japanese animated movie by Hayao Miyazaki.Sweet and nice playing!

The End (The Doors) by the Nosy Diva at Jim Morrison's grave

Noseflute.org had the opportunity to guide the Nosy Diva in her sightseeing visit in Paris. The Diva wanted to play a little homage to Jim Morrison and we went to the Père Lachaise cemetery, where is buried the Doors' leader. It was a piece of luck to be able to shoot the video in rather quiet conditions, since tourists buses pour out a constant flow of international visitors, greedy to hail the poet's memory.

The Diva played The End (1967) with her mini uke (iuke) and a Handler noseflute.



For sure, it is not the only place that the Diva visited, and here are some pictures of the Noseflute.org tour, among many other places and monuments she went to.

At the Tampographe Sardon's workshop:


At the Chocolate Factory (exhibition by artist Paul McCarthy):
At the Fondation Louis Vuitton by architect Frank Gehry), and in front of the Moulin Rouge:
And in Pigalle! oohlalah!

New Nose Flutes by Martina Sommer

I recently received two Nasenflöten by Martina Sommer, and it is the right opportunity to make an update. Indeed, we have already made a review of Martina Sommer's nose flutes (check this 2011 post please), but her instruments have a bit elvolved and the the way to get them has changed: no more at sommer-musik.de, which page is dedicated to Martin Sommer's music, but on de.dawanda.com or by direct contact ( musik-zeit[at]gmx[dot]de ).

In fact, few things have changed: Martina's nose flutes are hand made with nice woods, and each instrument is unique in its shape and wood combinations. But it seems that Mrs Sommer experiments with more complex shapes, including asymmetrical ones.



I got two nose flutes of rather elaborate shapes, one symmetric using curves, and one asymmetric only made of angles. They were provided with an user manual, a cardboard box and equipped with a leather neck cord.

The first one is made of hornbeam and robinia, and shows lateral edges taht have been filed into a watermelon slice shape. On the airway cover, a central depression has also been filed: those cuts are an help to grip the nose flute and press it under the nose, either with 2 fingers, or with adding one in the middle.

The second one (cherry + walnut wood)is even more interesting, with its asymmetrical shape. It definitively has a great look, very angular, like a stealth F117 airplane.

As expected with Martina Sommer's production, the craftsmanship is precise and neat. However, a soft sanding on the fipple would be nice for a perfect finish.



Unfortunately, the "technical parts" have stayed the same since our first review. The airway (which is not rectangular but rounded) is far too thick to provide a real "air blade": it measures up to 3 mm at the maximum of the rounded canal. Then, the mouth hole, which is a perfect circular hole, is also far too big in heigth (1 cm of diameter, while we know that .6 or .7 are the max: Heinrich Handler's Nasenflöten have a 3 mm high mouth hole and works like in paradise!).

So, all in all, a thick airway plus a too high mouth hole make the Sommer's nose flutes sound weak and windy. You have too blow strongly in them, and get a rather medium quality of sound. Schade, sehr schade. Yes, alas, because those nose flutes are beautiful and made with care, for a decent price (20€).

The Oberkreuzberger Nasenflöten Orchester at TFF-Rudolstadt

Here is an "old" CD, dating of 2003 of the TFF Rudolstadt. The Tanz- und Folkfest (TTF) is the largest German folk, roots and world music festival which takes place annually on the first July weekend in Rudolstadt (Thuringia, Germany). It exists since 1991 and have been gathering an audience over 75,000 spectators in the past 3 years.



In 2003, the TFF welcomed the Original Oberkreuzberger Nasenflöten Orchester (Das Grindchor). The Grinchor performed a great cover of Tip-Toe Through the Tulips (Joe Burke, 1929), and its recording features on the compilation published after the festival. The Berliner noseflutists were 9 on stage, accompanied by an electric guitar and some light percussions. The performance was great, very soft and neat compared to the post-apocalyptic punk sound the Grindchor generally develops.

Here is a sample (not complete to respect the copyrights), but you still can buy the CD here:






Here is what says the Nasenflöten Orchester page in the booklet:

« The nose flute is a plastic thing, "a very cheap and rare instrument and you can hardly buy it anywhere. As said in the name it is blown through the nose". In the nine nosed Original Oberkreuzberger Nasenflöten Orchester who plays the works of world literature in an inimitable manner, it is taken care for a liquid way of playing (specially in times of influenza), nice smelling arrangements and the right brand of beer (Schultheiss und Kindl). Nosebears of all countries unite!

Wonderful! Nine sturdy men, not exactly teenagers anymore, with plastic nose-flutes. The repertoire says it all: « My Way » and Beethoven's 9th, « Apache » and Khatchaturian's « Sabre Dance », « Harry Lime Theme » and « Je t'aime », « Zorba The Greek » and « Somewhere Over The Rainbow » — the list is endless, and so is the fun you'll have!

The Nose-Monica by Happy-Flute

Through the years, Gillette and its competitors have added blades and blades to their razors. They have recently reached the number of 5 blades on a single razor, and there is no reason they stop there, and I suppose that in 20 years we'll have razors with a blade dedicated to each one of our hair. The world of nose flutes is not exempt of this More contest, and the talented and inventive Mr. Akio Takamura (Happy-Flute workshop founder with Mr. Go Nagayama), after having crafted some double-fipple nose flutes (look at this one), just finished his triple-flute. Not a triple fipple with one air entrance, but a real triple nose flute in one. Akio Takamura named his new model Nose Monica (鼻モニカ)



Why three nose flutes? Well, if you take a look at the pictures above, you can see that whether the 3 air entrances are rather similar, the 3 fipples are increasing in size from left to right, from a treble to a lower tonality range. Mr Takamura wrote (with an optimistic humour) that he hopes to reach a 7 octaves range all in all :). Great job, anyway!

Magic Nose Flute in the New Yorker

In the January 12, 1935 issue of the New Yorker magazine, a long article (PP44-49) (called "Onward and upward with the Arts - Life of the party" and signed by Robert M. Coates) was devoted to the glory of the Johnson Smith company, whose catalog of novelties the author had just been studying. The 1935 issue of the J.S. catalog should have been a ±560 pages book, proposing to send you thousands of items. The authors deals with a dozen of those novelties, among them the Magic Nose Flute:



The most funny thing is that the Magic Nose Flute is compared to an eggbeater that someone has stepped on! Here is the 1935 Johnson Smith ad for the Magic Nose Flute (in which you can retrieve the article quotations), and a 1933 eggbeater:

Concertos for Nose Flute

As far as we now, there has been 4 concertos composed for nose flute:

Concerto for Nose Flute and Muted Saxophone (1926?)
George Antheil (1900-1959), performed by Edmund Dulac (1882-1953)

George Antheil was a very famous composer in the Avant-Garde years. When in Paris, he was used to frequenting James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Man Ray, Erik Satie, Fernand Léger and many other. His most famous work is Ballet Mécanique.



Edmund Dulac was a french (British naturalised in 1912) famous illustrator. Besides his orientalist drawing and paintings for books, he also created stamps, notably the ones with king George VI effigy or this great one to commemorate the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. But Edmund Dulac was also a nose flute player, who performed in many occasions. Unfortunately for us, it appeared quickly in our research that Mr. Dulac was used to playing traditional kinds of nose flutes, notably from Malay Archipelago.

In June 1926, Mr. Dulac performed the Concerto for Nose Flute and Muted Saxophone, composed by George Antheil. We didn't find the music sheet.



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Gross Concerto for Divers Flutes (1961)
Peter Schickele (born in 1935), with the pseudonym P.D.Q. Bach

Peter Schickele is the famous American composer who invented the fictional and humorous character of P.D.Q. Bach, alleged last J.S. Bach's son. The whole P.D.Q.'s story has been published in 1976 by Schickele, in a hilarious book: The Definitive Biography of P.D.Q. Bach



In the book, the nose flute is said to appear in P.D.Q.'s musical life through Thomas "Peeping Tom" Pollex, a young nose flute virtuoso. Soon after, Bach's "only forgotten son" composed the Gross Concerto.



In the section dedicated to P.D.Q.'s works, a double page exposes the Gross Concerto history and the "divers flutes" used to perform it. And at the right bottom corner of the picture, we can see a plastic Humanatone.



And in the book glossary, a small article describes the nose flute with a certain dose of humour:



But as usual in Peter Schickele's work, while P.D.Q. Bach's story is fictional, the Gross Concerto is real. It is a real concerto composed in 1961 and performed many times (and at least until 1993) by Schickele's ensemble, with the composer playing himself the "divers flutes".



I have not been able to find a recording of one of those performances, nor a video. In the DVD The Abduction of Figaro (by P. Schickele), the bonus contains very short excerpts of the Gross Concerto, but none with the maestro at the nose flute. But then, the bonus features a 1972 interview of Peter Schickele by Gordon Hunt for his TV program Hour Glass (Canadian Broadcasting Corp.).



A real archive, with Peter Schickele presenting the nose flute principle, with a shiny red Humanatone in his hand.

Note that the Gross Concerto is not the only work featuring a nose flute in Schickele's work. At least another piece, from the CD Portrait of P.D.Q. Bach (Vanguard ed.), named Angus Dei (no typo there:) is played with many instruments including nose flutes. Anyway, I was not able to clearly discern their notes in the ensemble.



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Concerto for Bassoon and Nose Whistle (1966)
Warrick L. Carter (born in 1942)

This is the most mysterious nose flute concerto: I don't know nothing about it. Its composer, Dr. Warrick L. Carter made a great career. Starting with musical teaching and composing at University of Maryand in the late 1960's, Dr. Carter successively became Dean of Faculty and Provost at Berklee College of Music, Director of Entertainment Arts at Walt Disney Entertainment, President of Columbia College in 2000, among many other functions.



According to his biography published on Answers.com, Warrick Carter composed a Concerto for Bassoon and Nose Whistle in 1966. I tried to reach Dr. Carter to get more info, but nobody answered my requests to be put in touch with him...



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Concerto Pomposo (2000)
Ulrich Nehls (born in 1959), with the pseudonym Jean-Marie Hottetotte

I will not much say about this concerto since I already did in this post.

Let's just say that the Concerto Pomposo is the most documented concerto for nose flute. Indeed, not only Ulrich Nehls generously published the sheets on imslp.org (and thus in public domain), answered all of our questions about this work, but the concerto was performed by the Brethren Bass ensemble, but also by Kentucky T. Dutchersmith and the Maple City Chamber Orchestra:

Videos by Hideki Arai

It had been unfair that we didn't post yet a video about Mr. Hideki Arai, a Japanese noseflutist who has posted no less than 21 nose flute videos over a year. Mr. Arai plays classical music themes, but also what one could call "standards" (El Condor Pasa, Evening Primrose, ...). Apparently, Mr. Arai plays a ceramic Bocarina^™.
The accuracy of his playing is astonishing, and he has a very peculiar sound, with (maybe a bit too much?) vibrato (produced by nose flute quivering). His videos are very recognizable, humble, always framed the same way on a white background and played with no background music. Really worth watching them.


All the other videos on Hideki Arai's Youtube channel

Harry Batchelor, The Musical Rube

Harry Batchelor, was a saxophonist who performed in the 1910s a musical and comical show with a certain success. On the Vaudeville theaters scenes, his show "The Musical Rube" (as he got nicknamed) was a mix of music and imitations. He was a talented muti-instrumentist, mainly focused on the alto saxophone, but also playing tenor sax, clarinet, banjo, ocarina and « nose whistle ».



Apparently, Harry was active and famous from around 1906 (the popular saxophone "wave") and until 1917. Did he leave for war then? I found no other mentions in the newspapers after June.
Alas, no picture with the nose flute...