PVC wonder! An organ or marimba?

Some on this forum are seriously into organs -- often very old ones. Others are into heavier and grungier stuff. Still others are somewhere in between. But no one can NOT smile at the creation of this university student. I'm thinking it's a marimba type, because it is struck, not played with keys or blown air.

Check out the photos:
http://www.facebook.com/snubbyj then navigate through the photo albums til you find the red-piped instrument.

Then go take a listen:
http://video.yahoo.com/network/100063489?v=8616024&l=100063517

Just goes to show, there's nothing ever really 'new'.

I recorded someone, using exactly the same idea, in the late '70's.  Can't remember the guys name (although the name Rodney keeps popping into my brain) but he was involved in a lot of music for adverts and stuff like that.

The only major difference was that he didn't bend the pipes, so they lay flat on the floor (some of them were 10 foot or so long and he used a pair of flip-flops as 'beaters'.

He does quite a good performance, but as Graeme says, there's nothing new about this, or the ideas behind it, at all. In fact, my father even wrote a book back in 1970-something about the subject, called simply 'Musical Instruments You Can Make', which features all sorts of different instruments made out of freely available materials. You can still even find the book floating about on Amazon second-hand from time to time; even though the materials available have changed, the basic ideas behind making your own instruments hasn't.

I think that the best one my father ever created was an instrument called the 'whoopsicord', but that didn't make it into the book, I think because it was, even for the intended audience, a bit too left-field... it is basically an instrument that combined a DIY dulcimer with a very simple harpsicord mechanism, all in one box. One problem with it was that it absolutely required two people to play it, and everything else only required one. I don't think it exists any more, but I'm sure he's got a photograph of it - I'll see if he has next time I see him (Christmas), because it's conceptually quite interesting.

Reminds me a bit of Blue Man Group. And then there is PDQBach of course My organ teacher once organised a concert where they used that kind of stuff in the '90s. There was a piece for organ and pvc pipe, where they had a bunch of those grey pvc pipes that they hit with table tennis rackets. It were straight pipes and a pain to move up and down the stairs to the organ loft.

One thing that impressed me was the harmony when two were hit together. There didn't seem any objectionable pitch problems in the intervals. And the fact that the lengths of pipe had to be accurate plus all fit in neatly together and look halfway decent.

..my father even wrote a book back in 1970-something about the subject, called simply 'Musical Instruments You Can Make', which features all sorts of different instruments made out of freely available materials. You can still even find the book floating about on Amazon second-hand from time to time; even though the materials available have changed, the basic ideas behind making your own instruments hasn't.

A quick search reveals the book is even listed in the National Australian Library. And available on Amazon.