SCREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

s1m0n · Post by **s1m0n** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 11:11 pm

I have a six-key Bb fife somewhere I'd happily make into a lamp.

Maybe I should, actually. I wonder where that ended up?

s1m0n · Post by **s1m0n** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 11:14 pm

THESE OLD FLUTES ARE RARE & HARD TO FIND.

Don't we frequently declare ebay nightmares to be 'firewood'?

Lampmaking is a reasonable thing to do with a no longer reparable (or worth repairing) instrument, at it usefully take it out of circulation, thereby saving future novices from losing their shirts on unplayable junk, by being suckered into taking someone else's disaster off their hands.

Cass · Post by **Cass** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 3:48 am

I saw a spinning wheel made into a lamp once...it had fake flowers stuck all over it too. Utter tackiness gone mad! I just can't understand why anyone with an ounce of taste (OK, half an ounce), would want to do this. it would have been a good working wheel before it was butchered (and smothered with flowers!)
....now squirrels on the other hand...(I only mean grey ones), well, that's a whole other subject. We're over-run with them here! Only two things they're good for.....lampshades and pies!

Cass.

ps...didn't REALLY mean it about the grey squirrels...well, they keep the cats amused anyway!!

fluti31415 · Post by **fluti31415** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 8:23 am

Cork wrote:Although I rarely find myself in such places, there are establishments here, in the USA, such as restaurants and places of drink, which promote "themes" to their customers, and music can be such a theme. Moreover, these establishments are so low as to literally drill holes through otherwise perhaps old but good musical instruments, and then fix them to their interior walls, in such a way as to be visible and to promote their theme, with, ouch, screws.

An otherwise viable musical instrument SCREWED to a wall!

That is worth a scream, horrid!

I bought an old Kohlert 10-keyed flute at an auction for $45 once -- I could have gotten it for less, but I was bidding against a woman who was going to put it up in a restaurant. Fortunately, I had tried it out before the auction began, and so word got to her during bidding that I knew how to play it, and she stopped bidding.

(and among some circles of musicians, the commonly used word for a poor quality istrument is "lamp.")

Casey Burns · Post by **Casey Burns** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 8:11 am

Just a few miles south of me here is the shop of Olympic Musical Instruments (hurdygurdy.org) - its where I do my laser engraving in fact. They have all of these antique Hurdy Gurdies from a large Swiss collection on consignment hanging from the rafters awaiting restoration. I've often commented that they should get a bunch of hunters in full gear with big guns, and line these up as if for target practice, and photograph the event for use in a calendar.

Actually the instrument makers here in the NW sometimes get together for an instrument "bash". Literally described. Everyone shows up with a sense of humor, food, an often large quantity of alcohol and derelict basket cases of instruments that people brought in to have repaired and then never payed for and picked up. Usually these are cathartically removed from existence in a bonfire, after creatively thought up tests of their structural integrity.

I remember one plywood cello top that could not be collapsed, no matter how many people tried standing on it simultaneously. Being next to the highway we found a semi truck driver willing to try driving over it. Still didn't work. So into the bonfire it went.

A few of my clients' flutes have ended up as dog toys. Some unintentionally. Usually they send these back with no explanation. None is needed. If I have time I'll send photos of one just so everone can wince.

Casey

crookedtune · Post by **crookedtune** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 9:35 am

Casey Burns wrote:A few of my clients' flutes have ended up as dog toys....
Casey

I don't know, Casey. It seems to me that if you give enough dogs enough flutes, sooner or later one's gonna play 'The Butterfly'!

Jumper · Post by **Jumper** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 11:33 am

Brad Angus, courtesy of Pat D'Arcy's site:

Post by **Nanohedron** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 11:38 am

God forgive me, but that's a really cool lampstand!

kkrell · Post by **kkrell** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 1:49 pm

Casey Burns wrote:A few of my clients' flutes have ended up as dog toys. Some unintentionally. Usually they send these back with no explanation. None is needed. If I have time I'll send photos of one just so everone can wince.Casey

Any suitable for a Wooden Flute Obsession cover?

Kevin Krell

Denny · Post by **Denny** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 1:52 pm

Casey Burns · Post by **Casey Burns** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 7:53 pm

Kevin,

Wouldn't in this case the album be called
"Wooden Flute Digestion" ?

Casey

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 8:21 pm

Casey Burns wrote:Just a few miles south of me here is the shop of Olympic Musical Instruments (hurdygurdy.org) - its where I do my laser engraving in fact. They have all of these antique Hurdy Gurdies from a large Swiss collection on consignment hanging from the rafters awaiting restoration. I've often commented that they should get a bunch of hunters in full gear with big guns, and line these up as if for target practice, and photograph the event for use in a calendar.

I was busking on Saturday at a Farmer's Market. Another
busker was playing a hurdy gurdy not far enough away.
A very loud, monotonous, droning sound. I'll be
back there next Sat. If I PM you the
address, perhaps your friends can send some hunters.

I remember in 1969 a rock festival in Seattle, the 'Piano Drop Festival.'
The piece de resistance: a helicopter
flew over the field where the festival was held, dangling a piano by a cable. A large space was cleared of people. Said
instrument was then dropped, the idea being to destroy it.
But the copter was too low, the ground too soft,
and the piano more or less survived. A huge crowd
of howling hippies ran to it and began tearing at
it with their hands.

Those were the days!

s1m0n · Post by **s1m0n** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 9:28 pm

Trebuchet assisted piano-drops are way cooler.

anniemcu · Post by **anniemcu** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 9:36 pm

s1m0n wrote:Trebuchet assisted piano-drops are way cooler.

Whee!

The Northern Exposure piano launch was one of my favorite episodes.

Casey Burns · Post by **Casey Burns** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 11:28 pm

I actually got to be a "technical director" for Northern Exposure once, and heard many details and stories about their Trebuchet. If you ever see the episode featuring a Native American making these "duck flutes" - realize that off camera I was there and all of the featured tools in the actors' hands ("Ed" and a guest actor) still live in my workshop and are used daily. I made the flute models which their art department then modified. The things didn't have to even work fortunately.

The scene took a million takes utilizing every possible variable which started at 10AM and ended around 4AM the next morning when the shocked union rep showed up and started yelling at everyone to go home or she would close the place down. All for about 2 minutes of story. At several points we were fed a banquet and at the first meal I sort of didn't know my place and ended up in line behind about 200 people. The line started with Director, Assistant director, Principals, Stage people and ending up with the extras at the bottom of the pecking order who were lucky to get a bone to gnaw on and had to go eat in their own room, with a locked door keeping this undesireable riffraff away from anyone important. Then me.

That was until someone tugged at my sleeve and pointed at the front of the line and there was the director looking at me, and then directing me under no uncertain terms by pointing to be #2 in line just behind him. Now. Thus the best cuts of everything served on china instead of paper plates and I got to eat with the highly important people as a highly important person myself, including a few of the principals. I had "made it" in Hollywood. I savored the dirty looks I got from the extras, but, of course, now avoided all eye contact with these people who were now way beneath me pecking order-wise, while I channeled my inner "Malibu".

This inflated sense of snobbery was unfortunately deflated by an old bicycling friend of mine who actually did make it to Hollywood big and who had worked closely with Redford, Travolta and others as a script supervisor for several movies. She pointed out that it was expediency and common sense, not my importance. Thus as soon as the director was done eating, everyone else had to be done so they could get back to work promptly, which wouldn't happen if I was still waiting to be served (and with a long night ahead of us!) and he would rather not wait for me.

But she did say that my title was "technical director" since I was working with the actors' hands, and looking through the filming camera on the dolly during several takes to determine if it looked real to my eyes. I was no mere spectator. Few from my caste ever get to sit in that chair on rollers and look through the eyepiece or say those important words "Cut!" when appropriate.

Thus when Hollywood literally came to my neighborhood a few years ago for an episode of Extreme Makeover (they were about a mile north of us replacing a house that had burned down with an oversized McMansion) I avoided the scene entirely, having "done" Hollywood on much more intimate terms.

I recommend such experiences - once a lifetime. More than that is a burnout much more intense than flute making with a neverending queue! So far I haven't been arrested for possession while driving intoxicated and haven't had to cry myself out of my celebrity jail cell, as featured in People Magazine.

Thus, I'll never get to appear on Letterman unless they are interested in my "Stupid Human Tricks" which mostly consist of slug and other molluscan impersonations (Clam urgently fleeing for its life, Nudibranc depositing fecal pellets on the seafloor. I should put these on YouTube). So far they remain uninterested. I did get to be on Car Talk once. Hollywood stole my Car Talk story last year so instead of my "Garter Snakes running loose in my Car and looking a lot like my wife's Teva sandal straps except these were moving" they took a reductionist approach rendering it into "Snakes on a Plane". And Matt Groening went to the high school next to mine (at the same time as me) so we had several mutual friends and he apparently stole my good Hollywood name for his nuclear plant owning cartoon character in the Simpsons.

I am going to have to find a new Agent!

C. M. Burns