The Day the Dinosaurs Came Back

Last year I found myself working on a project in a Great Yarmouth primary school, building up to a play written in collaboration with the children. My tasks included setting their lyrics to music playable on xylophones by 9 - 11 year olds. And then rehearsing the band with the singers. As anyone who has worked on school performances will know, the children usually give every indication of being completely unprepared, especially in the final rehearsal. Somehow it all comes right on the day, in front of their parents, and everyone breathes a huge sigh of relief.

The playwright in charge of that project is currently working on a play to be performed by children in a public park tomorrow and asked me to come up with some sound effects. Tomorrow is also the first performance of a revival of Thumbelina at Norwich Puppet Theatre and I have been spending the week coming up with a brand new soundtrack. This prior commitment means I could only provide ideas and materials for The Day the Dinosaurs Came Back. So I went along to the park last Sunday afternoon to run through my ideas with the director and her assistant.



As the name suggests, this show has dinosaurs in it. As there will be no electricity available I went for an all acoustic aesthetic and took advice from a friend who is a junk percussion specialist. I also visited Colman's (of mustard fame) factory, the piano shop and the man who runs my local bicycle shop. Everything we use needs to be portable because the action moves between various locations in the woods. For the three music makers I provided:

3 plastic barrels of 46 gallon (220 litre) capacity
2 didgeridoos
1 bass piano string stretched over a baton
1 nylon ground sheet

The barrels make great resonators. Also, if two different designs of barrel are dropped alternately in a slow walking rhythm it sounds just like a dinosaur walking through the forest. I had been given some old inner tubes from the bike shop with which I had intended to make beaters but dropping the barrels gives a better sound and is less fiddly on the move.

Blowing the didge into the barrels, remembering to touch the end against the wall of the barrel, makes a great groaning sound.

Scraping a piano string with a piece of metal, a spoon or a key for instance, has a long pedigree, most famously as the origin of the sound of Dr Who's TARDIS on take-off and landing. With the added reverberation of the barrel it's easy to picture Britain's favourite timelord materialising a few yards away. But it can also sound just like a dinosaur calling from beyond the trees.

Finally the groundsheet, tied to a tree at one end and flapped vigorously, makes a pterodactyl-in-flight sound that would even fool Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I sincerely hope this play is performed elsewhere on a day I can make.

Music from cardborad tubes

You probably think I have too much time on my hands. This morning I took three cardboard tubes of different lengths: 14" (35cm), 27.5" (70cm) and 59.5" (151cm). They are all open at both ends. First I used them as didgeridoos by blowing a tasteful and prolonged raspberry down them. On the sound clip you hear the longest tube first, followed by the middle tube and then a trumpet-like note on the shortest. Each gives concert Bb but they are an octave apart. Using embouchure control it is possible to bend the note and alter the tone. I confess I am no didge player - the embouchure doesn't sit well with playing a clarinet - but I assure you that, in the right hands, the cardboard didge will sound quite acceptable. Just be sure, like any wind instrument, to give it a chance to dry after playing or you may find yourself with a biology experiment on your hands.

The fourth sound on the clip is the middle tube, which came from a roll of wrapping paper, being overdubbed to simulate a group of players. Great for 'swarm-of-flies' sound effects!

Finally I hit the end of the largest tube with the soul of a slipper - a big insult to the tube, apparently. The knack is to cover the entire rim of the tube end as you strike, forcing the air inside to move. The sound is resonant but the last few hits are on the middle tube and this sound is less satisfactory. Because gripping the tube tends to inhibit its natural resonance, holding the tube vertically and dropping it onto the ground then quickly catching it gets the best percussive result.

The long tube came from a material shop, the short tube from a roll of cling-film.

If you can get hold of plastic tubing you will find it both more resilient and more resonant. Different lengths produce different pitches, regardless of the material used. One of the best instruments I have played was assembled at a camp by a friend of mine. It used thick blue gas pipe cut into different lengths and tied to a frame like some enormous set of pan-pipes. A pair of table tennis bats was used to hit the the pipe ends (because flip-flops weren't wide enough to cover the whole hole). Plastic tubes can be struck against the ground or other hard surface to create a pitched sound. In the picture two proprietary tubes (called boom whackers) are being struck against each other to produce a chord.

Sauna acoustics

I have mentioned a rather special building in the past. It is a sauna constructed primarily in plywood in the shape of an icosahedron. I have spent many happy hours in there over the years and have heard speech, laughter, chant and song within its walls (sides?). On my last visit I was treated to some very atmospheric didgeridoo playing late one night around the full moon. This prompted me to try out the acoustic with my clarinet.

I visited in the morning, when it was cool, and set up my recorder. I then began noodling on a folky theme in (concert) D dorian which allows me to drop down to what is, for me as a Bb clarinetist, known as bottom E. A few snaps, some fun in Windows Movie Maker and result awaits below.

From the point of view of the musician I found the acoustic supportive while playing but with a very rapid decay of any reverberations. Parallel surfaces are avoided when building recording studios as they prevent standing waves from making echoes, all of which are added later to give the required sound characteristics. Although the plywood that makes up the sauna is reflective, very little of the surface area is parallel to any other side of the structure. So, unlike most indoor spaces, it has no sympathetic resonances reinforcing the volume of certain notes. Most producers and recording engineers would agree that a sympathetic natural reverb like this is preferable to one applied solely after the event. And the vibe in a studio is unlikely ever to match this sauna. I could have added a flattering 'atmosphere' but prefer it like this.