Two-Thirds and Merry Christmas in Vegetablese!

Today marks the 2/3 point through NaBloPoMo and NaNoWriMo. Whoopee!! At this point I am about 70 percent through my novel (word-count-wise, not in the sense that it has any relationship to anything you might actually want to read), just slightly ahead of schedule. I am hoping to finish it over the weekend so that I will have the remaining week in November to write some coherent blog posts--because I probably will only have the energy to write about three posts in December. :-)

No Plot, No Problem, the guide to NaNoWriMo, suggests that, this week, participants draw colorful and detailed maps of the settings for their novels: perhaps the city where the action takes place, or the layout of a house or other building. Sounds like fun, and useful, too, and I will try to find time to do it.

Rallentando mentioned the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra in a recent post. Thanks to Donna's suggestion, I was able to find several Vienna Vegetable Orchestra clips on YouTube. The orchestra members hollow out veggies and play them like recorders or ocarinas, but most of their instruments are not melody instruments, but rhythm-based percussion created by slapping one veggie against another. It's nice, but sounds like a drum circle not an orchestra. Perhaps it is difficult to get the carrots to play in tune with the broccoli.

I came across another guy in Japan who plays tunes on his veggies. I found him very entertaining, and I hope you do too. Here are my favorites:

First, his rendition of Angels We Have Heard on High, on large broccoli ocarina.

Next his Old Castle's Moon on carrot pan-flute. (You will recognize this from the Suzuki books).

Finally, Old Folks at Home, on slide carrot ocarina.

If you like these, there are more at heita3's page.

I could not find anyone playing an instrument made out of a potato. There is a sweet potato ocarina, but it is made out of clay, not a real potato. How disappointing!