Hypotooter -- a mini-musical instrument

The hypotooter is a mini-member of the tootophone family of reed instruments.   (See:  http://www.instructables.com/id/pvc-TOOTOPHONE-a-musical-reed-instrument   and also;  http://www.instructables.com/id/Baby-Bass-Tootophone-a-reed-instrument  )

It is made from the protective case for a 12 cc hypodermic syringe, which can be purchased from a pet store or veterinary supply store.  I use the syringes as tools for extruding silicone rubber in making silicone rubber sculptures.  This is a good way to recycle the protective cases. 

The needle cover (pink) is sanded down to make the mouthpiece.  The reed is cut from a piece of scrap plastic that I recovered from a junked flat screen monitor.  Electrical tape holds it all together. 

To protect it in my pocket, I made a carrying case out of PVC pipe.

To hear how the hypotooter sounds, listen to the .mp3 audio file in the last step. 

Step 1 The Syringe

It's the case we are interested in.  The syringe is not needed for this project.  Syringes make good tools for precise application of lubricating oil.  Without the needles, they can also be used for fine extrusion of silicone rubber.  (The needles are too narrow to force the silicone through.)  If you discard the needle tips, just be careful.  They are very sharp. 

Comments

[Night910]

Cool, it sounds like a cross between a trumpet with a harmon mute, a soprano sax, and a kazoo

[laida1]

Yes I agree

[Akask]

Do you think i could drill tiny holes so you could use fingerings to change notes?

[Thinkenstein]

Search Instructables for my "tiny tootophone" and "sax and trumpet tootophone" instructables. The basic instrument is just the mouthpiece, the "tiny tootophone". You can modify the sound by making any modification to the body of the instrument. Sometimes, near the mouthpiece, I put in a "T", or make a fingering hole to get a one-finger wah-wah effect, but I think more holes would probably not modify the basic sound much. I do that better with just mouth control.

The better you get at playing it, the less you need your hands at all to pick out just about any melody. The beauty of this instrument is how intuitive it is to play, like singing. There's no fingering that needs to be memorized to play it.

[mctoma]

ah ah oh ah la la la la la

[Haliburt]

What would you say the range is on that?

[Thinkenstein]

Beats me note-wise. I just play by ear. A musician friend said he could get two octaves of a chromatic scale. He hasn't learned to play it very well yet, though.

[HaloReachPro]

Exactly how do you play this instrument, like how can you make it play different pitches and stuff?

[Thinkenstein]

Rest the reed on the dry outer part of the lower lip. (You want to keep it dry from saliva, if possible.) Curl the lip in over the lower teeth. Pinch down lightly with the upper lip. Blow. (Experiment with lip placement on the reed. Mid-point is about right.) Pinch harder and blow harder for high notes. Pinch less and blow softer for low notes.

Cup the hands over the end of the instrument (creating a closed ball of air at the end.) Open and close the hands to create wah-wah effects with the notes. Closing the hands lowers the notes. Opening them raises them.

Thus, you get approximate notes with the mouth and fine tune them with the hands.

It's easy once you get the hang of it. No fingering to learn. A musician friend was surprised to find that he got two octaves of chromatic scales out of the one I gave him.

[nickodemus]

Does Hypo stand for the needle casing or its relatively high pitch?

And nice work on this and all your other tootophone instruments, can't wait to see what's next!

[Thinkenstein]

The Hypo comes from the hypodermic needle case. I don't know what the hypo in hypodermic stands for; "under", I would imagine, for under skin needle.

It will be interesting to see if there is a next. I was hoping that soft and squeezable silicone rubber bodies would open new doors, but the results were not inspiring. I have done some double reed ones; with two small reeds side by side. That gave interesting harmonizing effects. Maybe I'll do an instructable on them one of these days.

It's hard to imagine them getting any smaller than the hypotooter. Anything larger than my other mouthpieces just takes too much wind for me. With the little hypotooter, one breath can last a long time and cover a lot of notes.

[nickodemus]

Oh, sorry, I didn't mean in the tootophone category, I just meant Instructables from you of any sort.
Bad wording on my part.

If you were thinking of doing another instrument, you might try something similar to a bagpipe, where the bladder controls the pitch...
I think I'll give it a shot soon.

[Thinkenstein]

A bagpipe definitely sounds challenging. You can lead the way on that one! Good luck. Let me know how it turns out.

[NicOmbra]

Maybe you could use a balloon as the bag of a bag pipe.

[Thinkenstein]

I imagine a balloon would work, but I get most of my melody out of these reed instruments by mouth variations directly on the reed. Vibrating the reed indirectly after the balloon bag would probably just give me a monotone drone sound. Of course, bag pipes do have a drone tone.

I'll give it some thought. I really don't understand bag pipe anatomy very well.

[Kozz]

I can't resist -- I've got to tell you that, listening to your sample MP3, the very first thing I thought of was Billie Holiday. I bet you could cover some of her tunes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWtUzdI5hlE&feature=related

[Thinkenstein]

That was a cool video. Yes, I could sure see playing along with Billie.

[Ninzerbean]

That sounds great! You need to form a band now. It would be so cool to give each member one of the many instruments you have made and for you all to play together.

[Thinkenstein]

That is one of my dreams, a tootophone chorus with other instruments as back-up, but musicians don't often appear to me locally. I do have a guesthouse available for visitors, and I would love to have musicians come and record with me.

[rimar2000]

I agree!

[Thinkenstein]

So, how are you on percussion? Guesthouse available.

[rimar2000]

Years ago I thought I was good at music, but life has shown me that I am mediocre toward down.

[Thinkenstein]

It's a pity that music making isn't a bigger part of everybody's life. Few people practice music. Nowadays it's just too easy to turn on a radio.

[rimar2000]

I am 1944's. When I was a boy, almost all my friends and I played the guitar, bombo criollo, charango, harmonica, piano, etc. We also sang tangos, South American folklore and folk songs. When record players became popular, and then cassette players, I saw in them a major threat with regard to the "homemade" music, and unfortunately the time said I was right. I play guitar a bit, have a good spanish guitar, (see http://www.instructables.com/id/A-Cheap-%26-Easy-%26-Simple-music-transposer/). But as you say, is so easy to put MP3 that for years I don't touch it. A pity, really.

[Thinkenstein]

In my barrio, years before I moved here, the neighbors say people used to sing all the time while picking coffee. Now, all you ever hear are radios blaring during the cosecha.

TV's are also vampires. When we get entertained all the time, we forget how to self-entertain ourselves. Creativity suffers.

That's progress?

[boaslad]

I fully agree. These days it's becoming harder and harder to find others who even play at all, let alone with any skill. It's really hard for me to accept that people would put more effort and time into playing "Guitar Hero" than learning to pay an ACTUAL guitar. But, they do. It's really sad if you think about it.

Great 'ible by the way. Funky sounding horn you got there. I can't play reed instruments on account of my numb bottom lip, but I fully appreciate any one that can. Even more so for any one who can think so far outside the box. Keep it up.

As for the song.. well, it does remind me of my favourite quote:
"It's the ultimate fusion between jazz and funk! We call it 'Junk'!" -- Robin Williams in Robots