The folgerphone (sometimes Folgerphone) is a

wind instrument A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator (usually a tube) in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into (or over) a mouthpiece set at or near the end of the resonator. The pitc ...

(or aerophone). Like the

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...

it is classifiable as a

woodwind Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments. Common examples include flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and re ...

rather than brass instrument despite being made of metal, because it has a reed. The folgerphone is a modern experimental instrument, using an

alto sax The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in E, smaller than the B ten ...

mouthpiece, with copper tubing and a coffee can (the name is a reference to

Folgers Folgers Coffee is a brand of ground, instant, and single-use pod coffee produced and sold in the United States, with additional distribution in Asia, Canada and Mexico. It forms part of the food and beverage division of The J.M. Smucker Co ...

, a common American brand of canned coffee). The instrument is not commercially produced, but constructed by musicians, and need not use a genuine coffee can, but any sounding box made of metal. Although it uses a sax mouthpiece, it is a cylindrical-bore instrument, and thus part of the clarinet family, but is played with finger holes, like a

recorder Recorder or The Recorder may refer to: Newspapers * ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper * ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US * ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...

, rather than with keys like a saxophone or modern clarinet. In the

Hornbostel–Sachs Hornbostel–Sachs or Sachs–Hornbostel is a system of musical instrument classification devised by Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs, and first published in the in 1914. An English translation was published in the '' Galpin Society Jo ...

classification system, it is among the 422.211.2 subsection of reed aerophones.

History

The instrument was invented by Nolan Hatcher and Craig Nutt of Alabama (members of the Raudelunas art collective, and the experimental jazz bands the Ron Pates Debonairs and the Blue Denim Deal) at least as early as 1979, when it was used on their duet album ''Dinosaur Time''. It has also been used in recorded

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a ...

and

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

works by others, such as Robert Horton's band Plateau (not to be confused with the Skinny Puppy side-project platEAU), as on the 1990 ''Arrhythmia'' compilation CD.

References

* Clarinets Experimental musical instruments Saxophones Woodwind instruments {{SingleReed-instrument-stub