AETHERPHON, global theremin family

That is a brilliant story, Bret.  That's why I hang out with musicians. :-)

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DAVID VESEL -- synthetic music for humans
http://davidv.purplenote.com
porphyrous@...
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The Purple Note Radio Network:
Escape From Noise, vocal electronica, 10PM Sats http://efn.purplenote.com
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Bret wrote:
> 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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