struggling to find a kipper box, but plenty of cigar boxes here
http://www.cigarboxnation.com/page/free-plans
Tim
----- Original Message -----
From: "Francis Wood" <oatenp...@googlemail.com>
To: "Dru Brooke-Taylor" <d...@brooke-taylor.freeserve.co.uk>
Cc: "nsp" <nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2010 2:16 PM
Subject: [NSP] Re: kipper box
On 10 Feb 2010, at 13:26, Dru Brooke-Taylor wrote:
I've a clear mental image of seeing somewhere, a photograph of an old
street musician playing what looked very like a strung kipper box. He was
holding it like a fiddle.
Hello Dru and others,
This does sound extremely likely. People have always improvised string
instruments using boxes that were immediately available. Even Fritz Kreisler
is said to have begun on a cigar box fiddle.
Though I wonder why a well-to-do cigar smoking Viennese family didn't just
give him a real fiddle.
I recently did some workshops in French primary schools, making instant
instruments. One of these was a harp-like thing for which I requested
substantial numbers of expanded-polystyrene boxes. I was sure these would be
difficult to procure, and certainly didn't realise that the nearest town, La
Rochelle, is a major fishing port. Perfect boxes were obtained in generous
quantities, none of them smelling fishy, because they were all new.
Whether or not there is a recollection or photo of a kipper box fiddle, it's
a good bet that a few people will have tried this in the past, and may even
have been pretty fair performers.
Francis
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