Hi Fran, I have been very impressed by your balloon organ and horn. I am currently making a horn, I've used standard penny whistle spacings, with an extra thumb hole for the octave. I have found the higher notes a bit flat - I was wondering if this coincides with your own observations - I am just about to make a new tube so I'd grateful for any pointers. I'm using 22mm PVC waste pipe tubing at the moment - have you used conical bore? I am also going to make a bass one from 40mm PVC pipe, I've used a beancan for the 'collar', works well but haven't tried fingerholes yet (I will use joints to make it spiral or looped to make access easier) I have not had any luck with register holes so I can get into a higher octave - have you had any success with this? Thanks for the inspiration and I hope you can spare the time to reply to this, Carl

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Hi Fran, I'm the new Director of Exhibitions at the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito. We are nearing the end of our Play It By Ear exhibition and I wanted to talk with you about next steps for your wonderful piece. Can you give get in touch with me via e-mail or phone: 415.339.3980. Thanks so much, Brianna

Gui - Thanks for your note. Yes, the same process that I used to make each (pipe/reed) could be repeated so as to reach a full Chromatic scale. Extending to other octaves is possible, but has other requirements. To get lower octaves, it would not be sufficient to simply make longer air-columns. You may have noticed that when I first set a drone in the video on my lowest note, I get a very high pitch until I touch the membrane. Two consequental factors are the ratio of 1) diameter/length as well as the 2) air pressure. 1) If d/l gets too small, the reed tends to "jump up" to a higher pitch. This is true in traditional organs as well, and it is most often dealt with by using progressively larger diameters as one constructs lower pitches. 2) A wider compass will also likely require you to independently regulate the air-pressure feeding your various pipes or volume will not be balanced across the instrument. Another factor: balloon membranes are very flexible, resulting in easily inflected, unstable pitches. I love their sensitivity, but for a chromatic instrument I would use a less-elastic membrane like shrink-wrap. Two other factors: bells at the end of your air-column can have a big effect on pitch, timbre, and volume. Also, the membrane can be further modulated by creating a chamber around the outer side of the membrane like I do with the chanter where I use part of an old clarinet. Good luck, and feel free to ask more questions. -Fran