No, not THAT kind of baloon organ...

January 11, 2008 9:38 PM

Surely this must be a double, right? I mean, you've got this great and strange program, Addi's Inflatable Minute, and this incredibly strange but somewhat haunting instrument and its all in one You Tube Link? People don't actually make this sort of content in real life, do they?
posted by Ogre Lawless (30 comments total)

uh, what?
posted by empath at 9:41 PM on January 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

Really previously from the same guy
posted by flatluigi at 9:42 PM on January 11, 2008

empath: "uh, what?"

Video blog about cool balloon stuff, pretty much.
posted by flatluigi at 9:43 PM on January 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

What's that instrument he plays at the end?
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 9:47 PM on January 11, 2008

OK. I will go to bed tonight with certain knowledge that there is still hope for mankind. Even if it only exists in a garage in Berkeley, CA.
posted by AwkwardPause at 9:54 PM on January 11, 2008

that was awesome.
posted by PercussivePaul at 10:16 PM on January 11, 2008

This is pretty gosh darn cool.

This reminds me of a plastic musical instrument toy I had as a child. One hand held the toy, and the other hand turned a crank. Simultaneously, one would blow into a mouthpiece. The crank caused a perforated plastic card to move through the toy, allowing air to pass through the perforations. Depending on where the perforations were on the card, different tones would emanate from the toy. Each card was thus a piece of "software" somewhat in the manner of the paper roll in a player piano, as each card "coded" for a particular song. I wish I knew what the name of this toy was, it probably came out in the early 1960's. As you might imagine, the songs were hackneyed old-timey tunes like "Camptown Races".
posted by Tube at 10:19 PM on January 11, 2008

Oh my that was good! I think my soul opened up a took a deep breath there.
posted by humannaire at 10:26 PM on January 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

Amazing! I showed this video to my students (it's a homemade-musical-instruments class) and their heads exploded.

This guy with his Vibraband is pretty damn good too.
posted by moonmilk at 10:27 PM on January 11, 2008

Our society would be a much more awful place without kooks like this hacking together instruments out of pipe fittings and balloons. Love the pistol grip garden hose nozzle keys! I expect this feller will be a feature story in Make, if he hasn't been profiled in that august gazette already. Frauenfelder, are you getting all this down? Excellent post.
posted by Scoo at 10:31 PM on January 11, 2008

Ooh, I found some more Vibraband (2 and 3).
posted by moonmilk at 10:40 PM on January 11, 2008

I don't even know what to say that will make me sound hip and cynical.

That was extremely great.
posted by thehmsbeagle at 11:03 PM on January 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

Moonmilk that Vibraband is AMAZING!
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 11:36 PM on January 11, 2008

coooooool.
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:51 PM on January 11, 2008

[This was Awesome]
posted by hadjiboy at 11:58 PM on January 11, 2008

That balloon organ sounds like bagpipes. I like it.
posted by pracowity at 12:01 AM on January 12, 2008

That balloon organ sounds like bagpipes. I like it

Yeah, that or a harmonium.
posted by hadjiboy at 12:04 AM on January 12, 2008

I'm so glad his balloon organ was a musical instrument.
posted by The Deej at 12:22 AM on January 12, 2008 [4 favorites]

YES!

yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesssssssssssssssssss

this is so many facets and levels of excellence
posted by Kattullus at 12:47 AM on January 12, 2008

A pal recently showed me her blow-powered battery-free rape alarm that worked on the same double-tube & balloon basis. Neat.
posted by imperium at 3:59 AM on January 12, 2008

Thank you - yet again! - Tim Berners-Lee ...
posted by woodblock100 at 4:15 AM on January 12, 2008

Fran? FRAN?! Mofo taught at my summer camp. At my EXTREMELY AWESOME SUMMER CAMP WHERE WE MADE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AND SWASHBUCKLED AND WENT ON ADVENTURES AND DID AWESOME STUFF IN BERKELEY CALIFORNIA. And now he is FPP'd on Mefi. My life is complete.
posted by wemayfreeze at 4:16 AM on January 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

Excuse me, I'm going to find some of these rubber bands. These people deserve all the praise they can get.
posted by ersatz at 6:58 AM on January 12, 2008

About the only thing I can blow is my nose. I'm impressed...

But my day is ruined 'cuz now I've got to watch all the other videos in that u-tube sidebar....

sorry, honey, the chores will NOT get done today, maybe tomorrow..

Thanks for the link!
posted by HuronBob at 7:24 AM on January 12, 2008

That balloon bikini is somethin' else.
posted by Sam.Burdick at 7:41 AM on January 12, 2008

I have a soft spot in my heart for people like Fran, who build zany instruments. Matter of fact, there's a several folks out there of a similar bent, who I've been thinking of doing an FPP on. The designing and creation of experimental musical instruments of various sorts is actually pretty widespread and alive and well.

On the subject of balloons, this clip is pretty fun: Balloon Music.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:15 AM on January 12, 2008

And then there's Judy Dunaway, who's all about the balloons.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:17 AM on January 12, 2008

Guys like Fran are great! I love people who hack together crazy stuff just for the joy of it. I wonder if he knows Flip Baber, here on the other side of the bay, who played the "Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy" on bicycle parts. (Although Baber was commissioned by an ad agency, it's still wonderful stuff.)
posted by Quietgal at 10:34 AM on January 12, 2008

I want to go to wemayfreeze's summer camp.
posted by ook at 11:28 AM on January 12, 2008

What's that instrument he plays at the end?

From Fran, in the YouTube comments:

I call it the "flubbaphone". Like my organ, it is a membraerophone, or membrane-aerophone. Unlike most finger-hole winds, it has a tuning slide that can alter the tuning of any fingering while playing as well as a bell that can be used to further modulate the resulting pitch...
there you have it.
posted by danb at 11:29 AM on January 12, 2008