Carrot Clarinet: Linsey Pollak at TEDxSydney

Linsey Pollak is an Australian musician, instrument maker, composer, musical director and community music facilitator. In this talk, he turns a carrot into a clarinet, using an electic drill, a carrot and a saxophone mouthpiece, and plays it all in a matter of 5 minutes.

Good Morning.

There's a lot of people here. It must be
because I'm wearing my red shirt.

(Laughter)

Hmm... I brought a carrot

and I'm going to give you

a quick 4:43, 4:42 instruction

on how to make your own
clarinet from a carrot.

A really good definition
that I like of creativity

is the putting together

of two previously unrelated things

-- objects or ideas --
in creating something new.

So I'm going to take a carrot

and a saxophone mouthpiece.

And I'm going to give you
a very quick demonstration

on how to make your own instrument.

Because I think the thing
we forget is we tend --

crazy, because music
is such a communal activity --

but we tend to leave music
in the hands of the experts,

and we, all of us, consume music.

But you yourselves can become

carrot clarinet players very easily.

So, you need a kitchen knife.

I'm going to cut off
the end of the carrot.

And I do have my trusty
carrot clarinet measuring stick here,

which is giving me
all my measurements.

But you can actually go to YouTube.
I've put all measurements up on YouTube.

You just need to type in:
"make your own carrot clarinet".

(Laughter)

So, these are my markings
for 6 finger holes down the front.

I'm just using the tip of this 12mm bit.

I'm giving you some...
You don't even have to go to Youtube.

You see, you've got just to remember that.
You can make a mark in your app.

Okay, so that's 6 finger holes

and 1 thumb hole on the back.

Marking... Okay, now the tricky part.

(Laughter)

(Electric drill sound)

Okay, here we go.

I've got a bowl here,

so I don't make
too much a mess of this stage.

And... into the center.

(Laughter)

(Laughter)

(Laughter)

Getting there, half way through.

One more, I reckon.

(Laughter)

(Cheers and applause)

So, you're laughing, and I understand.

Setting the middle bit now.

So, that's for the finger holes.
Let's do the thumb hole first.

And now the 6 finger holes
that you noticed that I've marked.

So...

You do need -- I'm actually using
a saxophone mouthpiece, I mentioned,

but it's still a clarinet because of
its cylindrical bore,

not conical.

(Laughter)

(Laughter)

(Laughter)

(Cheers and applause)

Ah...Sorry we've run out of time,
I have to go...

(Laughter)

I have got 57 seconds left!

Here we go.

(Clarinet sound) (Cheers and applause)

(Cheers and applause)