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Butt Trumpet

Leather valve instruments
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Despite the catchy title, this idea is actually wider in scope than just a butt trumpet and would include any instrument that would use leather to imitate the sound of a live flesh valve like the vocal chords or anus. I mean I know metal and reeds are going to be louder but wouldn't a leather valve trumpet sound, if not like a live person's vocal chords, at least like a dead person's vocal chords?
JesusHChrist, Aug 25 2011

Butt Trumpet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butt_Trumpet
the band [jaksplat, Aug 25 2011]

Buttinfront Fashions Buttinfront_20Fashions
[normzone, Aug 25 2011]

[link]






       Please, consider selling this instrument door to door. I predict you will go far.
Grogster, Aug 25 2011
  

       // like a dead person's vocal chords? //   

       A a dead person's vocal chords are well known for making a noise like " ". It's actually one of the primary diagnostic signs used my doctors to detect vitality, based on the technique of "Do something intensely painful and see if the patient screams".
8th of 7, Aug 25 2011
  

       sp: cords
csea, Aug 25 2011
  

       Amongst the bestiary of forgotten musical instruments, alongside the sackbut, bladderpipe and crumhorn, sitting in a dusty corner at the back of the musical toy cupboard, there is the raghorn.   

       The raghorn (or ragge horn, radhorn... spelling was more personalized back then) was a sort of reed instrument, with a wooden stem and a bell made of horn or bone. The "reed" was actually a flap of thin leather, anchored at one end and with a hole in it, held between two grooves.   

       When the player blew, the leather flap would move first one way then, blocking one of the grooves, would cause air pressure to build up until it was pushed the other way, and so forth.   

       The result (according to the University of York, who made replicas of several ancient raghorns based on unplayable museum specimens) was a "rasping ullulating bellow". The instrument had to be played "with great gusto" and required prodigious amounts of wind.   

       Pitch control was imaginative. The mouthpiece was quite wide and flat, and the stem of the instrument was quite narrow. The player could control the pitch by twisting the instrument while gripping the mouthpiece firmly between her teeth; this twisted and narrowed the 'throat' containing the leather tongue, and modulated the pitch. Some instruments also had finger holes, but it's not clear if these were of much use, given that the instrument could never be guaranteed to produce the same note twice.   

       Interestingly, nobody (including the team at York) has been able to ascertain the purpose of the hole in the leather tongue, even though this was found in all surviving instruments and is shown in the only contemporary engraving of the instrument.
MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 25 2011
  

       Bun for Rumpet.   

       two cheeky buns for rumpet.
FlyingToaster, Aug 26 2011
  
      
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