#obone

This week, I’m taking a break from scratching my head over attempted scientific explanations of sound phenomena and recalling a silly instrumental experiment I tried ten years ago.

In the summer of 2003, I had just finished my junior year of high school and was in the midst of drumline rehearsals. The year before, I had used a microcassette recorder to capture for posterity many of the humorous scenarios that came about from having a group of teenage percussionists led by former teenage percussionists. The fidelity was poor, though, so for the second year, I borrowed a portable stereo cassette recorder from one of the band directors.

Besides drumline hijinks, I recorded a few musical improvisations with my younger brother, who was about to enter the seventh grade. He played trombone in the school band, and I had a friend (then girlfriend, then ex-girlfriend) who was an oboist. These facts culminated in my attempt to produce a hybrid instrument: the obone.

A diagram of the obone’s construction. (Assembled on the cheap out of public domain images from Wikimedia Commons.)