Uking and the mouth trumpet story in the Wall Street Journal

What a pleasant find on my FB timeline today!

Mouth Trumpet Lets You Toot Your Own Horn, but Without the Horn

Featuring Victoria Vox!

Thanks for the heads up. She did a great show and workshop at the 2014 Tampabay Uke festival in November, featuring this fascinating technique. I tried it and all I ended up with is a lot of drool on my uke.

I got the bug and learned to trumpet but I look so silly doing it, I just never do! LOL!

Nice find! Earl Okin is a true master at this, and it is something that can lead to extraordinary Heights. French singer ZAZ is also know to smuggle the technique in most of her songs, blending in with the woodwinds and brass in her orchestra.

Cliff Edwards' effing or eefing is also more like mouth trumpet (buzzing; Riddle, Perkins), but sometimes reaches over to the scatting tradition which developped simultaneously(meaningless syllabes - Calloway, Fitzgerald, Vaughan, Gaillard). And even hollering/whooping (Patton, Sonny Terry) and yodelling (switching between chest and head register on the same note; Pucket, Rodgers). So fun, it leaves you lost for words...

On eefing: http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2009/03/eef-beat-manifesto.html

I gave learning this a go. Not very good at it, but it does seem to be a pretty good vocal warm-up. A bit of Fanfare for the Common Man and Penny Lane, and I'm ready to sing ...

Very nice piece and it's true that either you do it well and it works, or else you utterly fail. It's got to be right the first time.

The youngest of the Andrews Sisters does this on Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy; really good sonic input to that recording.

The zobo was big back in the late 1800's and the Kazobo is still produced though Ive been looking now for a year waiting to see a metal one surface. http://www.kazoos.com/store/merchant.mvc?Store_Code=KK&Screen=PROD&Product_Code=PLKZB

When I was a teen I could belt out a hell of a mouth trumpet, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana brass had nothing on me. Flash forward 35 years and my last try at mouth trumpet was off key and tarnished.

Maybe some cute young thing will come along and rediscover scatting next.

Inksplosive AL said:

Maybe some cute young thing will come along and rediscover scatting next.

Click to expand...

A feller can dream ...