AETHERPHON, global theremin family

David wrote:
Bazookaphone?  Do tell!
--------
David,
Thank you for asking.  I had not thought of my Bazookaphone for many
years, until I wrote that email the other day.  

The story begins on Christmas day in 1962, just before my 5th birthday.
 

That Christmas, Santa brought me a toy plastic bazooka rocket launcher.
 Here is a picture and description of the actual weapon:

http://www.rt66.com/~korteng/SmallArms/bazsup.htm

Like most young boys in the 1950\ufffds and 60\ufffds, I liked to play soldier. 
We had toy hand grenades, toy machine guns, toy hand guns, and Army
helmets that we used during war play with the neighborhood kids.  It
was sort of like playing \ufffdCowboys and Indians\ufffd, but updated with WWII
weapons and themes.

It was fun to play war for a while, but in time I grew bored with the
toy bazooka as a weapon.  One day in my bedroom I pretended that the
bazooka was a trumpet.  I pressed the bazooka barrel around my mouth
and sang a note to imitate a trumpet's sounds.   

What I heard was musical magic to my ears.

The toy plastic bazooka was not a one piece hollow tube.  The main
bazooka tube was made from 2 injection molded half tubes riveted
together side by side.  It was not quite airtight where the 2 side
pieces met.  Inside the tube was a plastic wall, so that the sound of
my singing through the bazooka emanated only from the tiny gaps along
this seam, not from the far end of the tube.  My voice being forced
through the tight but leaky gap along this joint created a distortion
causing harmonic overtones that mimicked the sound of a trumpet. 

I was convinced that it sounded exactly like a trumpet.  Not sort of
like a trumpet, exactly like an actual trumpet.  I felt elated when
played my bazooka.  I would dance around my room, playing my favorite
songs, having more fun than I can convey to you.

I fantasized as I played that I was performing before amazed audiences.
 I thought \ufffdName a song, any song, and I can play it\ufffd.  

My mom eventually got rid of the plastic bazooka.  

I got my first 'real' instrument, a flutophone, when I turned 8 yrs
old.  The next year I got my first guitar.  Playing both of these real
instruments gave me such pleasure that I would loose myself in them for
hours at a time, just as I had done with my toy plastic bazooka years
earlier.  Having the real instruments, I didn\ufffdt think of my toy bazooka
again for a long time.

Fast forward some 20+ years.  

While channel surfing the TV, I saw the black and white image of a man
holding a long tube that had a whiskey funnel on the far end.  The man
was playing this tube like a straight slide trombone.  The TV narrator
said that it was Bob Burns playing his Bazooka!  

Immediately my mind flashed back to my toy bazooka.  Memories of the
joy that I had felt while playing that toy bazooka in my bedroom washed
over me like the floodwater from a burst damn.  My feelings overwhelmed
me so much that I only heard bits and pieces of the narrator's
explanation about Bob and the odd instrument.  I did hear him mention
Bob\ufffds stint the in army, entertaining troops playing music with his
bazooka, and the weapon of the same name.  

Not hearing all the historical facts, I assumed that Bob made the
instrument during WWII.  I also assumed that he called it a bazooka
because it resembled the shoulder held rocket launcher.  I forgot all
about Bob and never researched the facts about his musical bazooka.

Until you asked me to tell about my Bazookaphone.

And now the, the rest of the story.  (Quoted from the web):
----------------
"Bob Burns (born Robin Burn) was a kid from Van Buren, one of those
very bright underachievers, a multitalented average student.  
Musically adept, at the age of sixteen he assembled the first bazooka
as a novelty instrument for his own band. When the First World War
broke out, Bob enlisted in the marines and took his (musical) bazooka
with him to wile away the hours on the long overland trip to basic
training. By the time he got to South Carolina, the attending sergeant
was well-aware of Bob's talent and apprised his commanding officer. Bob
was ordered to put together a Marine Corps jazz band and he managed to
do a little soldiering on the side. He was a rifle instructor and
champion marksman.\ufffd

\ufffdBob's band was eventually shipped out to Europe. They got a note from
Pershing himself that said in effect, "Go where you want, do what you
want." They stretched their indulgence as far as they could, staying in
France and playing gigs long after the war was over. Eventually, their
abuse of privilege came to the attention of officers of sufficient rank
to order them stateside and home Bob went.\ufffd

\ufffdSo Bob went into showbiz, and to make a long story short, became a
huge star of stage, radio and screen. He was an entertainer that shared
top billing with the likes of Bing Crosby and Tommy Dorsey, so he was a
really big deal in his day. He was known as The Arkansas Traveler, and
his stock in trade was country humor. Often in the movies he played a
country rube that ended up outsmarting the city slickers.\ufffd

\ufffdThe word "bazooka" was coined by Burns himself as an onomatopoeic
description of the sound made by the instrument. In a letter from
lexicographer Thomas K. Brown of publisher John C. Winston & Co. (on
display in the train station in Van Buren), Brown thanks Burns for
confirming that the word "bazooka" was derived from "bazoo," a slang
term for "a windy fellow." \ufffd

\ufffdBazooka the Weapon was invented in 1941 by an army officer named
Skinner. In the late 1930's he took a Swiss-made shaped charge from an
army warehouse and stuck it on the end of a rocket from a
rocket-propelled grenade. He then stuffed that bomb-on-a-stick into a
garden variety 60mm mortar tube, balanced the mortar tube on his
shoulder and let 'er rip. The army was more impressed with this
shoulder-fired rocket than it was with any of the anti-tank rifles
being developed at the time, so Skinner's device was dubbed the M-1,
and an improved version went into production as the M9A1.\ufffd

\ufffdAt the time it wasn't known as a bazooka, but within a few months of
its introduction, GI's in North Africa had named it after this musical
instrument.\ufffd
------------------------------

So now I know the complete history of my first musical instrument. 

The bazooka was a musical instrument invented by sixteen year old Bob
Burns, who used it to entertain troops overseas during WWI.  Bob became
a huge star of stage, radio and screen.  

In 1941 a shoulder held rocket launcher was invented and deployed. 
WWII GI's familiar with Bob and his music likened the new weapon to
Bob\ufffds homemade trombone, and renamed the rocket launcher \ufffdBazooka\ufffd.  

In the 1960\ufffds toy plastic bazookas were made and sold as play weapons. 
I got one for Christmas in 1962.  Tired with playing war, I transformed
the toy weapon into my first musical instrument, bringing my bazooka
back to its original purpose, making music.

That\ufffds my story of first bliss with music, which still lives inside me
today.  
I no longer have my Bazookaphone, but the joy\ufffds just a memory away.

bret

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