On the 2nd Day of Christmas...

... this blogger gave to thee...

... two tuneful gizmos...

... and a great soup for cold winter days.

It's day two and I have spent the past day and a half accidentally writing the post for day three, thinking I was going to publish that, then realising a silly post was proving harder than I realised.

So ironically, I've gone back to the post concept I'd initially started writing on the 2nd of March this year for the 1st day! Yes ladles and jelly spoons, despite the fact that this 12 days may be my most ramshackle, I did in fact have some parts already thought out and written and very good intentions...

"This year, I'm going to do things a little differently. I'm going to be on time posting these blogs! I'm going to be on time because this year I'm going to try and write a post each month. In other words, the 1st will be in January, 2nd in February, 3rd in March etc, etc... that said, I've only just come up with this plan and it's March, so since I'm already behind, I'll alter the plan and say I'll potentially write one post a month, but if I write the 9th day in May and the 3rd in November, that's fine, but they will be published on time!"

How naive I was!

But we're not going back to my originally envisioned post, but taking inspiration from it and talk about two handmade musical instruments. But you definitely wouldn't fine in your traditional musicians repertoire. 

The first is the Waribashi Piano or the Chopstick Piano by Sami Elu, an American musician and street performer based in Tokyo, Japan, who creates his own instruments out of unusual and everyday materials, because anything can make music because there are no rules. In this case, Elu has used the incredibly simple and iconic chopstick and piano strings to make a piano like instrument which a hit, strummed and plucked and creates in my mind a really beautiful sound. But you can judge that for yourself.

To me the music Elu creates is very reminiscent of the musicians such as Erik Mongrain's Air Tap! or the music Kaki King created for the film August Rush (2007), using the technique known as lap tapping, where you place a guitar horizontally over your knees and the strings are tapped, slapping, hammered, plucked, strummed and pulled to create vibrations, rhythm and melody, and thus creating music.

Music I personally really like. Though having listened to Elu's song, For My People (the first full video), repeatedly on YouTube and intended repeatedly to blog about, I'd never thought about the similarities it shares with me created by tap tapping a guitar.

In a Elu also took part in a 2016 TED x Tokyo talk, if you're interested in hearing him talk a little more about his work and as always there are as many links as I can find at the end of the post for you.

The second less than standard musical instrument is from Swedish Folktronica band, Wintergatan. Consisting of Martin Molin, Marcus Sjöberg, Evelina Hägglund and David Zandén, the band uses both unusual instruments such as the theremin and self invented instruments, the one in question for this post being the Marble Machine.

Created in 2016 by Molin, in collaboration with a team of designers and engineers, the Marble Machine was built to include a vibraphone, bass guitar and cymbal into the one instrument. All powdered by hand crank, the machine cycles steel marbles through multiple lengths of tubing and plywood channels before allowing them to be released - in an organised and pre-programmed pattern. This allows the 2.000 marbles to fall from a height, and strike the in instrument pieces below, before falling into awaiting funnels and moved back up through the machine and back into the music.

This not only make an amazing sound, which is very reminiscent of OK Go's Needing/Getting, but it is the most impressive marble run I've seen. To look at it, in many respects, it looks more like the armature for a Jim Henson creation or the Strandbeest, a wind powered sculptures by Theo Jansen, which scuttle across beeches independently.

I like the contrast between these two instruments. The Marble Machine looks incredibly polished and robotic and produces, not unexpectedly, a very programmed and intentional sound, which given Molin also creates music using a self-built punch-card music box system, this isn't surprising. Whereas the Waribashi Piano looks homemade, in the best way, because Elu has utilised the materials he has on hand to create his instrument and it produces an incredibly organic sound, which goes with his ethos of music being everywhere. 

Everywhere isn't always a good thing. Honourable mention on this post goes to the original subject of my pre-written day one submission, and the stuff of my nightmares... the Furby Organ created by self proclaimed musician and inventor, Look Mum No Computer a.k.a. Sam Battle, who is obviously insane for not only spending seven years on this, but also getting that close to so many wild Furbies... thank god he's sedated them.

I saw this back in March at stupid o'clock in the morning and I was half incredibly impressed and fascinated by this feat of Frankenstein level musical engineering, but also incredibly disturbed. It had to feature this year.

My hatred of Furbies is deep seated. It may have lead to me to accidentally on purpose murdering my little sisters. In my defence I'm pretty sure I was trying to study for my first exams, and despite putting it in a wardrobe to shut it up, it kept chattering to itself. I admit now, I reacted rather extremely, but how was I to know that dropping it would kill it?

You should have heard the names it was calling me!

Fact is, I'd do it again! Mwhahahahaha!

I couldn't resist this, honestly the idea of a Furby Organ is just too insane to pass up sharing.


Merry Christmas! Part three tomorrow or there about...


Link || Sami Elu || Bandcamp || YouTube || Twitter || Facebook || Soundcloud || Spotify
Link || Erik Mongrain || Website || YouTube || Twitter || Facebook || Soundcloud || Spotify || Twitch
Link || Kaki King || Website || YouTube || Twitter || Instagram || Facebook || Soundcloud || Spotify
Link || August Rush (2007) || IMDb || Wikipedia || Rotten Tomatoes
Link || Wintergatan || Website || YouTube || Vimeo ||  Bandcamp || Twitter || Instagram || Facebook || Spotify
Link || OK Go || Website || YouTube || Twitter || Instagram || Facebook || Spotify
Link || This Ludicrous New Instrument Makes Music with 2,000 Marbles by Christopher Jobson via This is Colossal
Link || Strandbeest by Theo Jansen || Website || YouTube || Twitter || Instagram
Link || Look Mum No Computer || Website || YouTube || Twitter || Instagram || Facebook

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Listening: Needing/Getting - OK Go