h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is my first journal entry. It's mainly here to get rid of the awful message that was in this space before.

I just heard about a new musical instrument. For me, this is a major event. This one looks easy enough to play and doesn't cost much. It is the Xaphoon. There's only one person who makes them and only one place you can get them, in Maui, Hawaii. It looks like a bamboo flute but sounds like a saxophone. As far as I can see, this is actually a bamboo clarinet, similar to the chalumeau from which the clarinet is supposed to have been developed, but it certainly does sound like a saxophone.

I think my next project will be to build something like this, using an old clarinet mouthpiece and some wavin pipe.

I did build one of these using some bamboo from a beach in Greece, and an old clarinet mouthpiece. But I couldn't get the bore of the mouthpiece to match the bore of the bamboo. The instrument played reasonably in tune in the lower register, but was completely out of tune in the upper register.

Then I bought a plastic Xaphoon, which is hard to play because they maker didn't try and keep the fingering the same as every other wind instrument. I've more or less given it up as a bad job.

I wouldn't put it past you to invent your own one day - the Gnomonophone?

Were you subscribed to my original journal entry, or did you just see this in passing?

I certainly remember reading lots about you making instruments back in those days, but I suspect that this conversation appeared on my list because you are on my Friends List.

I must have been on your friends list when I first created the journal, then, which seems odd, as it was back in September 2000. I didn't think I knew anybody then. I don't think that you get subscribed to old journals when you add someone as a friend.

There weren't friends' lists in those days. Perhaps I did just see it in the conversations list on your journal and click to see what it was. So maybe you're right. Sorry - Hope you don't think I'm intruding!

Not at all.