So this post started innocently enough. I thought “What a better way to start the week than with music performed on a taxidermied badger?” You know, we’ve all thought this at one time or another. I had just heard about this instrument from a recent episode of QI which featured Bill Bailey as a panelist. Incidentally, QI is probably the only show where you could imagine something like the Badgermin coming up without Bill Bailey on the panel.
So I found this lovely video.
Yes, that’s a theremin made out of a badger. If you don’t know what a theremin is (you kinda do even if you don’t), then you are even more confused than normal here. So quick aside: watch this really excellent explanation as to WTF it is:
First of all, I noticed that it was posted by “thenervoussquirrel” (which I would later find out was not in fact a joke about animals worried about being turned into musical instruments). Then, I saw this note: “Get in touch if you’d like a custom theremin, synthesiser, or other instrument. Still making things in 2021.”
So I fired up the old Google (I still have the crank model) and quickly located the website of one David Cranmer. And on that Badgermin page, there was this note: “You may also want to check out the owl theremin.”
“What in the hell have I walked into?” I thought. Was Cranmer some mad genius creating theremins out of animals? This would be quite possibly the nichest Etsy store on the entire planet. But before I explored further, I had to see this other theremin.
Okay, so now I wanted to go to the home page of Cranmer’s site, expecting to see…I don’t know… a capybara theremin. Or a platypus theremin. Or whatever. Instead, I found this. It’s full of projects with titles like “Giant LED Lungs” and “The Furby Gurdy” and the inevitable “Pneumatic/electronic head inflating system.”
It was obvious at that point I was going to have to back out slowly if I ever wanted to get any work done today, much less get this simple post about a badger theremin done. But I will be back to comb through the madness. Go check it out yourself, but I’m telling you…set aside some time and pack a sandwich.
