Video : incredible bird forgery !

A short video with, at its beginning, great birds sound effects made with a nose flute...

Workshop : the second poster

I received the templates printed front and back : quality printing on thick cardboard! And I mounted one nose flute of each color. Then sprayed some varnish. Here is the result, perfect whistling cardboard nose flutes :

Thus, I was able to complete the second poster for my workshop, the assembling instructions :

And here the 2 posters together :

Bullwinkle's Hum-a-Tune and Humanatone

I found some vintage plastic nose flutes, dating to 1969. They were sold with the brand "Bullwinkle's Hum-a-Tune" for 29 cents, and made by Larami Corp.
The printed credits are : © P.A.T. WARD MCMLXIX (the Bullwinkle character creator) and ITEM NO 2820 LARAMI CORP .. PHILA. PA. 19107 PARTS MARKED WITH COUNTRY OF ORIGIN HONG KONG.

Bullwinkle J. Moose was a rather stupid moose, character of the 1959-1964 TV series Rocky and Bullwinkle, produced by Jay Ward and Bill Scott. Many by-products were issued, including comics, plastic figurines and toys.

Larami Corp. was founded in 1947 and was a toy company whose products ranged from 39 to 99 cents. They were rack toys, doomed to convenience stores and grocery stores. Let's say cheap and crappy toys...

I already have a Hum-a-tune, with no particular branding, that I showed here. The regular Hum-a-Tune and the Bullwinkle's are strictly the same products.

The only exception, apart of the packaging, is the quality of plastics (the regular one is made in a softer and opaque plastic material). The Bullwinkle's is rather translucent.

Now, let's compare the Bullwinkle's to a modern Humanatone ...

First, the plastic material is absolutely not the same. On a blog, it is difficult to make feel the difference, but you can figure it with these little sound samples : the first sound is a Humanatone that I dropped on my desk, and the second the Bullwinkle's dropped the same way :



Next, as we already noticed in the Hum-a-Tune review, there is no true tremolo hole on the Bullwinkle's, nor padded strip at the bottom of the mouth cap.

More, contrarywise to the 1950 and the current Humanatone, no patent numbers appear inside the mouth cap. No "Humanatone" brand stamped, just "Made in Hong Kong".

And finally, the angle of the nose scoop is not the same :

This leads us to conclude that the Bullwinkle's and the Hum-a-Tune more generally, are not at all a different production of the « genuine » Humanatone. They are (low grade) copies, let's say forged Humanatones made in Hong Kong, but have nothing to do with the Gretsch or Trophy Music nose flutes, contrarywise - and this is said in a friendly way and with much respect - to what affirms and teaches Master Mosurin : There were no Humanatone made in China (nor in the Commonwealth's Hong Kong).

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On a similar topic :

- Hum-a-Tune : a vintage low grade copy
- Hum-a-Tune : different colors
- Bullwinkle's Hum-a-Tune and Humanatone
- Humanatone copy from 1997

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Free music : The Nempnett Thrubwell band

The Nempnett Thrubwell Noseflute Band is real. Well, Nempnett Thrubwell is a real village of 189 citizens located in Somerset, England. "They" also have a MySpace page on which you can listen to 4 pieces for music, highly nosefluted. And on this page, is told the history of the band. Is it for real ?

« There has been a nose flute band in Nempnett Thrubwell since 1943, when, during the war, 2 soldiers from the Peruvian National Guard were stationed in the village and passed on their skills to the bands founder member, Norman "Nosey" Cutler. Since then the band has experienced many highs, including a 1959 royal Variety performance, and a brief period in the late 1980s when former Bristol City manager and Escape to Victory star Russell Osman was a regular on the tenor flute. Those were happy days indeed, and the band acquired some high profile celebrity supporters, including former boxer and soul legend, Terence Trent D'arby. In fact, Mr D'arby was such a fan that he paid for the redecorating of the practice room in the village hall, and he often invited the band to play at his summer barbeques. Fortunes dipped somewhat for the band in the mid 1990s, until, for a period of about 3 years, the band only had one regular member - myself (Silas Burns secretary). To be honest, I was rather overindulging in cider and local cheese at the time, and my policy of only playing early Pink Floyd tunes and 14th century madrigals was probably keeping membership down. Thankfully it is cider only for me these days, and the band has recently gone from strength to strength. Nosey Cutlers great grandson Daz has recently joined up, and he brings a wealth of current pop knowledge to the mix, having narrowly failed an audition for the boy band Five on account of his hair being too ginger. Percussionist, Dave "Pieman" Plimsole is also a highly experienced performer who once used to regularly tour with a number of acclaimed pop bands (including The Joe Boxers!) until he broke both his legs in a cow tipping prank that back fired. We hope you enjoy our selection of popular melodies. For us, nosefluting is more than just making wonderful music, it is a way of life. As Noddy Holder of Slade once said: Come on, feel the nose! »

I personally recommend you those 2 songs : Song 2 and Senorita

Link : The Nempnett Thrubwell Noseflute Band page.

workshop : the first poster

I completed the first of two big size posters, to be stuck on the wall in my workshop. It firstly tells a (very short) history of nose flutes, then how to play them and how they work. Well, sorry, it's in french :)

Protect and cure your wooden nose flutes

You wouldn't like your wooden nose flutes to dry in the time, and have some slits appearing in the assemblings. Nor would you like them to become grey with repeted handlings. The best way is to protect them from crud and feed the wood to keep it up at its best.

For this, I use Lemon Oil (in fact : lemontree oil). It is primarily dedicated to the maintenance of guitars and other neck instruments fretboards, and can be bought in any music instrument shop.
One may use other oils, but some become rancid with time (olive oil for instance). More, the lemon oil lets a nice soft lemon aroma on your flute.

The operations are quite simple : cover the nose flute with a generous coat of oil wherever you can, wipe the excess with a paper towel, and use this excess to access the places and crannies that weren't accessible with the oil bottle cotton pad. Then, let the wood absorb the oil during several hours. Done for 6 months!

Warning : some woods may darken a little bit with this treatment, others don't.

Here with a Heinrich Handler's nose flute :

Video : Sanshin and Hanabue !

Too short video ... we would have loved to have more. For non Japanese people : the instrument is a sanshin, precursor of the shamisen, and played in the Okinawa region. I personally love the music by Noborikawa Seijin, well known singer and sanshin player.

Cardboard workshop again...

Yesterday, a (very good) friend of mine, who is a professional printer, proposed me to print my templates on cardboard, for... free. And today, he told me they were already printed ! Done on a heavy cardboard (300g/m2), and on both sides... So, since after folding, some parts are stuck reverse-side on the front side, the flutes will be two colored. I should receive the printings in the middle of next week. To be continued...

Workshop : "La Folle Journée de l'Architecture"

Each year, in the School of Architecture where I teach, we organize a special day with many workshops called "La Folle Journée de l'Architecture" which means "The Crazy Architecture Day"), and invite the public to come and produce lots of things. This year I've proposed to lead a nose flute workshop, in which everybody will receive a cardboard template, tools and advices, to build a functional nose flute.
Then, I will teach how to play, and we all will try to play a song all together ...

If you are in the neighborhood of Nancy (Lorraine region, France), please come and visit us!

Video : Carl Maria von Weber

Waltz from Preciosa, by Carl Maria von Weber, played by with a wooden nose flute and a keyboard, by two austrian musicians : Ukulele4Aukekulia.
Please note how the vibrato is produced.

Carl J. Aarlaht : an Estonian-Canadian nose flute

Carl Johannes Aarlaht was born in Vaivara, Estonia on 5th of May, 1924 (†04/25/1989). He emigrated to Canada and settled down in Hamilton. He was a Master Scout, member of the Estonian Society of Friends of Scout Canada (Hamiltoni Eesti Skaudisõprade Selts) and decorated of the Northern Star.

Carl J. Aarlaht registered two patents. The first one, in 1958 (US2989719), was for « Convertible Attachment Plugs » and was referenced later by numerous patents regarding similar devices.

The second one, of a better interest for us, is a nose flute. The patent (CA684140) for a « Musical Whistle » was registered on 14th of April, 1964.

« Generally the present invention consists of a simple musical instrument of the wind type which may be simply made of flat material such as metal, plastic material or the like. »

Apart of a nice angular shape design, the nose flute offers no innovation in comparison to old metal Humanatones. The only difference regards the lip rest, which is surprinsingly under the mouth hole, thus providing a rest to the lower lip.

Review : a Hungarian wooden nose flute

I ordered a hungarian nose flute ("orrfuvola") from Béres kézmúves Mühely (Béres handicraft workshop). Attila Béres produces lots of wooden items since 1995 : kitchenware, furniture, buckskin shirts, soaps, massage accessories, wooden toys, elements of decoration, and ... musical instruments.
And among the instruments : Agogos, bird whistles, castagnets, drums, flappers, Guiro, kalimbas, maracas, nut rumblers, rakataks, shakers, sistrums, tambourines, shekere, and... nose flutes.

« I founded my family enterprise in 1995. The direction of my activity came natural to me as I had played percussion and loved working with wood. Our musical instruments can be easily used in musical education and music therapy and they are popular among professional musicians as well. We make not only basic percussion instruments but widen the scale with several egzotic pieces, too. We think it is our responsibility what relationship the generation just growing up has to nature and to traditional values. Our instruments and other handicraft products are made of natural materials as wood, fruits, seeds, reed, leather, brass, coconut and so on. During procedures we use old handicraft techniques. All our products are qualified by the Hungarian Department of Fine Arts. We hope we can greet you soon as a satisfied customer. »

So, I received a nose flute I paid 8 euros, hand-made, in wood. And I was rather dispointed, because of the low quality of fabrication.
The labium is a mess, the details are not clean, there is long slit between the body and the air duct cap, glue smears ...


Each flute is stamped with Mr. Béres logo :

Well it works, and it's a easy-player instrument. But because of a so unclean labium, the sound is very dull, without a good definition...

Here are some sound samples to compare with hi-class wooden nose flutes providing a clean sound (well separated harmonics) :

Attila Béres' nose flute :


Max Zycha's nose flute :


Heinrich Handler's nose flute :


Well, those flutes aren't worth the same price. But at equivalent one, there are the "no name Ebay nose flutes" which are a bit cleaner...

Attila Béres website : magyardob.hu

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Addendum to "The Nose whistle gourd"

Addendum to our previous post "Theatrical contraption : the nose whistle gourd"

...

I wanted to know more... and asked the seller of this theatrical gourd nose flute. The fact is the seller is the inventor-creator, the Pipe Major Norwood Baybridge, FSA Scot, Regional Commander of the Scottish American Military Society... nothing less.

The best I can do is just pasting the story the Pipe-Major told me, since it is so well-written and full of humour :

« This instrument was made about twenty years ago just as the last freezing and canning for the winter supply was finishing. At that time, in the late 1980's, the turbo-jet-powered, supersonic passenger jet, "ConCorde", was still flying; however, the owners of the organically grown gourd were poor people and couldn't afford a ticket. So they transported the gourd to a local furniture shop via motorized, wheeled transport. Though my memory is growing dim, I believe it was a Buick.

At the furniture shop, the gourd was cleaned, interestingly, by several of the employees who were listening to a record that teaches individuals the sounds of the instruments of an orchestra. Following this cleaning, a small hole was drilled into the gourd and a  self-hardening foam was pumped into it. This was to give the gourd additional strength; as well as to protect it from being later infested with the vermin that normally accompany some musicians.

Using modern, industrial machinery, an insertion point was power-chisled into the gourd for the insertion of the HumanaTone nose whistle; and, the finger holes were painstakingly drilled into the sides. It was an endeavor that put all of your senses to work, leaving men exhausted, but enthralled.

It may be stated from personal experience that the manufacture of this gourd nose whistle was much more difficult than cutting one's own hair for an important engagement.

The gourd nose whistle was played on many occasions at various fairs and country music get-togethers in makeshift bands usually composed of vagabond folk artists armed with an array of fiddles, jaw harps, tamborines, guitars, gamboozees and autoharps. »

The Pipe Major Baybridge may play for your special events, from wedding to ... funerals. You should visit his web page, clanpiper.com, full of beautiful and incredible pictures.

Video : The Auto-recording Nose Flute

I built this little contraption yesterday and made a video :

Theatrical contraption : the nose whistle gourd

I found this very special instrument on Ebay : a « nose whistle flute gourd ». I'm not sure his inventor filed a patent for it, but it is surely a collector's must.

The instrument is made with a vintage metal nose flute stuck to a kind of gourd ocarina. I write "kind of", because this is a theatrical instrument, meaning that the gourd is not functional, purely decorative. But the flute, indeed, works.
It is a old Humanatone, as the stamp on the mouth cap identifies it, rather dented, and coverd by thick layer of painting, black on the internal side, golden on the outside, to match the gourd color.

« It is a stage instrument and show stopper, used for variety value. It has finger holes for a person to pretend he or she is playing it mechanically; but when held up to the mouth no one can see that the musician is just using the nose whistle which has been set inside of the back of the gourd. »

The description offered by the seller was not deprived of humour :

« Traveling? It fits right in any suitcase or hamster cage. »

or better :

« Let others pull out their fiddles; their mandolins, harmonicas and washboards. They can dig through their instrument inventory for a hundred years and never pull out a nose whistle gourd. And that's because no one else has class. Those are just hardscrabble musicians who can't think beyond lemon-sesame sauce for grilled vegetables.
As an expressive musical performing artist, you will have them beat by a mile with this, caffeine free, world-leader, nose whistle flute gourd.
This is better than homemade pea soup in a Des Moines restaurant. »

Please read the sequel to this post.

Video : The french anthem on a japanese stage

« La Marseillaise » by Rouget de Lisle, performed by a french student with a wooden nose flute, during a student exchange, in Kyōto.

The Swiss patent of a Lithuanian diplomat

A Swiss patent (CH253732), filed on 12th of March, 1947, and registered on 31st of March, 1948, for a « Fischietto Nasale » (nose whistle). The author is Mr. Narcizas Prielaida, from Geneva.

« Fischietto, caratterizzato da una parte applicabile al naso e da une parte applicabile alla bocca, in modo che il naso funziona da datore di fiato, mentre che variando l'apertura della bocca e la posizione della lingua si fa variare l'altezza del suono. »

The object doesn't show any improvement upon the nose flutes from the beginning of the century. It's a metal 2-parts nose flute, with a lip rest. However, it features a very long and elegant mouth-cap, we should say a « mouth-cape ».

I don't know if the Prielaida's flute was produced, and have no further info about it. But I found a lot of data on the inventor himself, quite interesting.
[Edit : Since, I received an answer form Mrs. Prielaida, who told me the flute was never commercialized.]

Narcizas Prielaida was born on 20th of January, 1920 in Akstafoje, Azerbaijan, but was a Lithuanian citizen. His family lived in Klaipeda (Lt) where Narcizas dreamed of becoming a sailor. The family moved then to Siauliai and Narcizas began arts studies. Under the Soviet occupation, the Prielaidas moved to Switzerland.
From 1945 to 1949, Narcizas studied at Geneva Art School, became a graduated teacher, but was not allowed to work because of his nationality. So, he studied maritime law and worked in various insurance companies. He became the chairman of the Lithuanian community in Switzerland, and was appointed, in 1980, as World Lithuanian Community Board representative at the Human Rights Committee, United Nations.
In 1992, he became the first Lithuanian representative to the United Nations in Geneva, and in 2007, was awarded of the Officer's Cross of the Order for Merits to Lithuania (Ordinas Už Nuopelnus Lietuvai).

So, at the time of his patent, Narcizas was a student in Arts, not yet a diplomat. But his nose flute is definitely a diplomat's invention. It is a shame that his Wikipedia page does not mention his nose flute patent ! (If a Lithuanian reader might update it ...)

New Humanatone ads

I found new Humanatone advertisements and will add them to the relative post.

The first one was published in the 1908 J. W. Jenkins' Sons Music Co (still in the Jenkins catalog in 1929) :

The second one in the 1928 Johnson Smith catalog, with a 2.5 times decreased price :

The third one comes from the 1931 Chicago Musical Instrument catalog (back to a 2.5 increased price per dozen, after 1929 crash) :

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About metal Humanatones, check :

- Humanatone - part I : the metallic era
- New Humanatone ads
- The Two metal Humanatones
- Another metal Humanatone
- Humanatone boxes
- Another Humanatone box
- Humanatone: A very early user manual
- The Magic (Nose) Flute: only questions... .
- A Humanatone and clones chronology
- A Humanatone in 1892 ?
- Humanatone: Early promotional demos
- Another Humanatone archive
- Huma... something
- Rectification: Humanatone appearance date
- Great paper from 1903
- Nose Flute Pioneers: The Stivers - Part I
- Nose Flute Pioneers: The Stivers - Part II
- Nose Flute Pioneers: The Stivers - Part III
- Nose Flute Pioneers: The Stivers - Part IV
- Nose Flute Pioneers: The Stivers - Part V
- A Humanatone as a scientific tool
- Two other Humanatone Ads

And on later Humanatones :

- Humanatone - Part II : the Gretsch plastic era
- Humanatone - Part III : the Gretsch metal era

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Video : birds calling

A French man imitates the amazon forest birds with a wooden nose flute.

Students drawings

Each year, at the first class of the first year, I'm used to ask my students (architecture school) to make a drawing, in order for me to evaluate their drawing skill (or the deepness of the lacunas...). This year, I showed them what a nose flute is, played 2 or 3 notes, and asked them to draw a self portraict as a nose-flutist.

Here are the best and/or the funniest works :