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Wind Pipe

The mother of whistlers
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The Wind Pipe will entertain you and your neighbors with nature’s own melodies, absolutely free. Wind power drives the fluttering flute to produce random tones from tweet to toot to honk, making a harmonious ballad guaranteed to put nightingales to shame.

A curved funnel (like on a tuba) leads to a thin flexible tube that hangs down at the end. The Wind Pipe can rotate on its stand that is connected to the funnel’s wide end, so that it always faces into the wind. At the narrow end is a reed and a flap valve to emit short bursts into the flexible tube. As wind outside the funnel causes the tube to flutter up and down, the volume of the resonance chamber inside it changes, creating the arbitrary tune.

Imagine a brass or copper Wind Pipe in your yard, on the roof of your home or why not the chrome model on your car?

FarmerJohn, Jul 28 2002

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       Hm. I thought people had made things like this. In fact, I though *Nature* had made things like this.
DrCurry, Jul 29 2002
  

       What happened to that one idea or something where flowers or something made music or something?
thumbwax, Jul 29 2002
  

       Fishy. Wind-chimes by another name. (Yes, I know they don't actually *chime*, but they'll be just as annoying and anti-social.) If [hippo] can come up with some way of making them silent, I'll reconsider.
angel, Jul 29 2002
  

       I wrote a folklore-type short story about something similar once. I should find that again.
Tabbyclaw, Apr 19 2006
  
      
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