Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom (1953)
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😹
FunTranscript
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00:46 Today we're going to study about...
00:49 Case of history.
00:50 Love and mystery.
00:51 Mathematics.
00:52 Acrobatics.
00:54 Reading, spelling.
00:55 Storytelling.
00:57 No, no, no.
00:59 The study of musical instruments is the subject for today.
01:04 The study of musical instruments is the subject for today.
01:10 [music]
01:18 Did you ever stop to think when the band plays "Ring-a-ding" where all the music comes from?
01:24 From a toot and a whistle and a plunk and a boom.
01:27 That's where the music comes from.
01:30 Did you ever understand that a symphony so grand, so bright and yet sentimental.
01:36 That a toot and a whistle and a plunk and a boom are very instrumental.
01:42 For the horns go toot.
01:44 The woodwinds whistle.
01:45 The strings go plunk, plunk, toot.
01:48 And the drums boom, boom with a bing, zing, zoom.
01:51 And it comes out fine and true.
01:54 So remember what I say when the band begins to play just where the music comes from.
02:00 From a toot and a toot and a toot and a boom. That's where the music comes from.
02:06 [music]
02:09 Now students, fly with me to the dawn of history.
02:13 We'll start investigating the toot and the whistle and the plunk and the boom.
02:19 It's very stimulating.
02:22 Oops.
02:24 Okay boys, you're on.
02:26 [chanting]
02:41 When a caveman blew through an old cow's horn, right then and there, the first toot was born.
02:48 [toot]
02:50 [toot]
02:52 Now let's look ahead in history and here we are in Egypt, 2000 B.C.
02:59 [music]
03:00 And now on the banks of the river, now the toot has certainly changed its style.
03:06 And the kind of a note that the caveman blows is not good enough for the old pharaohs.
03:12 [toot]
03:13 [toot]
03:14 [toot]
03:15 [toot]
03:16 No, it's not good enough for the old pharaohs.
03:20 [music]
03:37 Now, the longer they made these ancient trumpets, the lower they sounded.
03:42 [music]
03:51 But one day, someone bumped into a very startling fact.
03:56 [crash]
03:59 [silence]
04:06 He had discovered that changing a trumpet's shape did not in the least change its pitch.
04:13 [music]
04:15 The curved or curved brass horn had been invented.
04:21 [music]
04:23 Ah, but this horn could produce only certain notes.
04:28 [music]
04:31 To play a simple tune, you would have to use four horns of different lengths.
04:36 [music]
04:46 Now, cut off these extra lengths, attach them to one horn,
04:52 add valves to control the passage of air through the extra lengths.
04:57 Now you can play your tune on just one horn.
05:02 [music]
05:06 And this is a basic principle of our modern brass horns.
05:11 [music]
05:19 Now, let's go back to our whistle.
05:22 [music]
05:29 When this caveman blew on a tube of grass, the very first whistle came to pass.
05:35 [whistle]
05:38 In order to make his cave girl smile, he had to improve his whistle's style.
05:44 [whistle]
05:50 When he saw he was doing fine, he added more holes, about eight or nine.
05:55 [whistle]
06:02 By using his head instead of his feet, some genius found a way to beat this problem in a manner neat.
06:09 [music]
06:14 [music]
06:19 [music]
06:28 When our third caveman plunked on the string of his bow, it was the first plunk as far as we know.
06:34 [music]
06:37 [music]
06:58 And here there are two ways to go.
07:01 You can either plunk it, or play it with a bow.
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07:59 From our last caveman with his rhythmic slap have come all things that click or tap.
08:06 Came rattles,
08:10 bells,
08:13 and we presume, all other instruments that go boom.
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