The World Is An Instrument

Imagine yourself taking a test (or trying to sleep in your AP Lang class), and from the back of the room you hear the methodically tap tap tap of some annoying guy with a pencil. That jerky guy who is humming and tapping his foot to a song that no one else can hear. You want to take his head off right? Well don't, I think that is a way to use and promote unbridled creativity. If you don't believe that tapping your foot or plucking a rubber band can actually produce some wonderful music and encourage creativity. Look no further than the non conventional and MacGyver-like musical stylings of Joe Penna, known on Youtube as MysteryGuitarMan.

He is what I would be like if I had ten times the musical talent, one hundred times more effort, and one million times more experience with cutting and editing videos. He takes very commonplace but not often used items  as musical instruments by overlapping videos of him playing that video. My favorites probably included the "Root Beer Motzart", "Pop" played by letting air out of balloons, the "Vuvuzela Symphony", and the "Bohemian Slide" which is "Bohemian Rhapsody" played on slide whistle. I have a special spot in my heart for that last video. Bohemian Rhapsody is one of my absolute favorite songs in the world. One thing Queen did amazingly is to create a song that feels inspiring and powerful. "We Will Rock You" can get every stomping like an army in about two seconds flat. I absolutely love those types of epic songs, which is what made me so happy this year that our show choir is doing a very dramatic and powerful opener written by Muse.

The thing I love about the videos I mentioned earlier is that they take commonly annoying sounds like a vuvuzela and that squeaky sound that air makes coming out of a balloon into beautiful music. He even did a song entirely with phonebooks, which is wonderful because I love to tap and drum on my textbooks to make music. This validates all of us compulsive tappers, shakers, and hummers out there. It makes me feel like less of a completely annoying person and more of a musical savant.

So the next time you see, or rather hear, someone making some beautiful music on their impromptu instruments, don't shut down their creativity. Feel free to join in and add your own music. School, especially LA class, is about learning to effectively express ourselves, and music is one of the purest and most beautiful forms of human expression out there. Thanks so much for reading and make sure to keep making music.