—The musical tomato cans make a bombastic instrument—very bombastic I should say. Be that as it may, get eight tomato cans, soak the labels off carefully and keep them. Next melt off the tops of the cans and paste the labels on them again. Set each can on a piece of felt as shown in [Fig. 107].
Fig. 107. the chopin tomato can
Now by pouring water in the cans you can tune them so that each one will send forth a whole number note and all of them together will give the notes in the regular order of an octave. You do not need to put any water in the first can but use this one for the fundamental note, that is the note on which the chord is formed.
Make a couple of mallets, as the sticks to beat the cans with are called, of a pair of sticks about as thick as a lead-pencil and twice as long and glue a wooden ball ⁵⁄₈ inch in diameter on one end of each one.
To Play the Tomato Cans.
—When you have tuned the cans set them in a row on a piece of felt, or a couple of thicknesses of thick woolen cloth will do, and with a mallet in each hand tap them softly.
While some folks who have no ear for melody, harmony and dissonance[106] may say that both the instrument and the performer ought to be canned still the instrument is a great one to play Chopin’s[107] funeral dirge[108] on. Undertakers are crazy about the musical tomato cans.
[106] These are the three chief factors that make up the various combinations of tones which we call music.
[107] Chopin (pronounced Sho′-pan) was a Polish musical composer.