Musette

I wonder what kind of sound it has - if it sounds "plasticky", LOL! But great idea :)

I can't wait to hear it myself!! It was supposed to arrive yesterday *pout* I guess I'll have to wait until Monday. I will definately be posting some sound bites so you can hear it. My experience with plastic reed instruments, is that the tone is not affected terribly - even when the reed itself is plastic. I've made a couple reed instruments out of pvc pipe, and also clay.

update: And today it arrived in the mail!! I started out by testing it with a drinking straw reed, as I have used on my clay shawms. The result was that it sounded a lot like my clay shawms but was easier to play, because the holes were more precise. But it wasn't good enough, so I decided to get an oboe reed. And it sounds much nicer!

Here is a soundbyte for you. Sorry for the horrible quality. I have a lot to learn about sound recording. I was able to fade it in an out slightly so minimize that horrible background noise. http://www.whyst.com/sounds/musette-pvriens2.wma

Apparently certain areas of my website are down today ... so, if you ever have problems accessing that sound file, try this link instead: http://www.glennlroberts.com/www.tsj.ca/musette-pvriens2.wma

Wow, that's wicked. Did you have to do any post-printing work to it before it was playable (ie- light sanding or clearing of holes, etc) or was it out of the box good to go? Sounds great- what a genius use of the technology.

Out of the box good! All I had to do was add a reed :) Now, mind you, I'm used to playing reed instruments, so it may not be perfect for the novice player. I'm going to test it with some beginner reed instrument players to see how they feel about it.