@Ayce - yes, there are similarities with Blue Man, although I didn't know of that group when I made most of the instruments; my initial inspiration was a Perth group back in the 80s called AC-PVC (
) who made weird instruments from junk. A very serious group of musicians doing fully-composed works.
@elgecko - the noise level when you have 30 kids playing my instruments can be pretty high; Only half the group are playing the drums & un-tuned percussion at any one time and I always set the drums up outside in the open air (the other half are inside a classroom playing the tuned instruments), but even so when you have 15 kids pounding away on the drums it is thunderous.
As far as managing that number of kids, it's not really a problem for me; I'm a qualified child care worker (with a B. Soc. Sci. in Children Studies) so I've got plenty of experience in working with kids and knowing how to channel their energies. And since the instruments are practically unbreakable I don't have to worry about kids mistreating the instruments - drop my banjos and they bounce. (BTW - did you see me wince when I was playing the bass banjo? I only realised that it was tuned down too far when I started playing it and it buzzed badly on some notes; the batteries on the camera were running out and we couldn't shoot that segment again. And my intonation sucked.)
@skychief - yes, the bass thongophone is one of my favourites and it's always a hit with kids (little kids love big things; I think it's a power thing - I generally find that the big bass drums are the most popular of the drums too, and I have to model playing the smaller ones before the younger kids will try them). BTW, it's called a thongophone because here in Australia rubber beach sandals are called thongs. Elsewhere they are known as slapophones or slap tubes, since in most places "thong" means something quite different
.
Yeah, the drums sound amazingly good when you consider they are made from junk; I use standard drum skins because nothing else sounds as good or lasts as long. The hard part is getting the skins tight enough since they are just held on with 2.5mm nylon blind cord. The snare just uses thin bricklayer's line stretched in "Vees" across the top of the skin.
@everybody else - glad you liked it! I'll be putting up more videos soon on how to make some instruments.
Alec.
