It is a fine moonlit night.
In a glade in a forest are an orchestra and an audience.
The orchestra are arrayed in standard crescent formation. The audience are scattered all around the rest of the glade. To the casual observer, it would seem to be nothing more than a gathering of classical music fans in a forest glade, excepting the fawns bussing champagne flutes from small custom-made saddles on their slender, tawny backs.
Look closer though, as a good halfbaker should, and a number of curious details emerge.
The orchestra are resplendent in finest evening formal wear on their top halves, and surf shorts on their bottoms - a style known as “Formal Boardwear” in certain surfing circles. The surf shorts have all been chosen in accordance with the classic “Triple F” code (Flowers, Flames, Fluorescence).
The wind instruments have large plastic pipes issuing from their bores. The pipes coil all around the orchestra and disappear off behind them.
The pipes are airtight around the instruments. This will do curious things to the sounds.
If the volume produced is insufficient, microphones will be inserted in each instrument’s tube (airtight seal around the microphone). The pipes will alter the sounds of the instruments and pick up on the players’ breathing to produce a sound that might be a distant cousin of the Star Wars cantina band (Figrin Dan & The Modal Nodes, shout out to all my geek playas). Alternatively, I guess “really weird muted sound” would be as good a description as any.
The Paddling Pool Symphony is a traditional four-part composition.
The first movement is slow, pensive, sometimes romantic but at times almost mournful. The audience sigh and sway along with the tune, savouring the company of loved ones and the beautiful woodland setting.
The second movement offers suggestions of liveliness and expands on the scope of the first as if to hint at the majesty of the distant, eagle-littered mountains.
Unnoticed by the audience, a crumpled rubber silhouette has begun to rise around the orchestra.
The third movement retains the broad range of its immediate predecessor but is more energetic still. All across the audience, feet are tapping and heads bobbing. Behind the orchestra a giant tap gurgles into life, adding a burbling percussion to the proceedings.
The fourth movement explodes in a riot of brass and woodwind. Crazy improvisational xylophones skit over indulgent, nine-minute tuba riffs. Frenzied timpani pound, violins are sawed at as if to produce fire from the strings.
As fireworks erupt from the trees behind the orchestra, the conductor - a wide-eyed man with a shock of white hair in a lab coat - turns to the audience and invites them to join the orchestra in the giant paddling pool that now looms about them.
With shrieks of delight, the audience kick off their shoes, hitch their skirts and run to the pool. Close up, they can see the pipes from the instruments feeding into the giant paddling pool that hitherto lay crumpled and inconspicuous on the floor.
They all jump in and dance in the water like savages as the orchestra continue to crank the party like only crazy surfer classicists know how.
The event rages on until sunrise when the fawns bring restorative cocktails and everyone settles down in the pool to watch the dawn break.
Yeah.-- DocBrown, Aug 09 2004 The Talk Box http://www.frampton.com/equipment.htmlSlightly OT - a device that pipes sound up a tube into your mouth [wagster, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004] heh.-- skinflaps, Aug 09 2004 [bwv61] That's what this bit was about:
//If the volume produced is insufficient, microphones will be inserted in each instrument’s tube (airtight seal around the microphone).//
I don't really know what kind of unaided sound you could expect - I didn't have an instrument to hand to test it with, but if the audience couldn't hear, we'd break out the mikes.
...although, now I come to think of it, as the air from the instruments inflated the paddling pool, might the pool itself not start to act as a sort of amplifier itself? I'm on very shaky ground here - someone with the knowledge please chip in!-- DocBrown, Aug 09 2004 Sound can travel through mediums other than air.Not sure about the pool becoming an amplifier.-- yabba do yabba dabba, Aug 09 2004 //Look closer though...and a number of curious details emerge.//--you mean besides the fact that fawns are serving the cocktails?
I love this idea! It sounds like the weird dreams I have after having too much sugar. Don't forget to add me to your guest list.-- Machiavelli, Aug 10 2004 Ha! What an enjoyable evening that would be :D Might have to give the fauns a miss though...-- vixsyaoen, Aug 10 2004 You're on the list plus one [Machiavelli]! Be sure to overdose on sugar beforehand, so as to be in the correct frame of mind upon arrival.
My fauns are quite harmless [vixsyaoen], just so long as you don't attempt to answer a mobile phone during the performance...-- DocBrown, Aug 10 2004 "fawns" and "fauns" are not synonomous [DB], despite your frequent exchange of terms. The first conjures images of a naive, inexperienced, wide-eyed Bambi; the second refers to the satyr that would sully Bambi's innocence. Both are partial to woodlands, though.-- jurist, Aug 10 2004 Playing Handel, of course....-- Ling, Aug 10 2004 Thanks [jurist]. Took my cue from [vixsyaoen]'s post but should have noticed that one. To clarify: fawns will be bussing drinks and attacking mobile phone users. Fauns may be present but have no official role in the proceedings.-- DocBrown, Aug 10 2004 Unfortunately you would have to enclose the entire instrument in order to get air out of the end - otherwise the breath will come out of open keys in the instrument body. Would ruin the sound, but I'd come anyway, no matter what it sounded like. [+]-- wagster, Aug 10 2004 Makes you think twice about C.S.Lewis and the sexual politics of Narnia, doesn't it, [scout]?-- jurist, Aug 11 2004 Hmmm...half man, half goat... I can't imagine what it took to produce a faun.-- jurist, Aug 11 2004 I like it, croissants for you! Maybe add bubbles or dry ice to change the density of the water?-- Around TUIT, Aug 11 2004 random, halfbakery