File NP-01 · Arcane Organology · k0s.org/sound

The Nautiliphone

A keyed wind instrument for ninety tentacles and no lungs

Principal designer: Suzanna, Nautilus · Secretary: Jeff

Top Secret
A spiral notebook page headed 'The Nautiluphone [TOP SECRET!]', with an ink drawing of a nautilus whose tentacles reach down to a curved, keyed body, musical notes and bubbles drifting out of it.
Exhibit A · The drawing The original sketch, in a spiral notebook. The shell is the bell; the tentacles gather onto a curved manifold of keys; music escapes at the bottom. Early drafts spell it Nautiluphone.
Suzanna, a felt nautilus with a black-and-red striped shell and grey yarn tentacles, holds a small gold saxophone on a sea of torn blue paper, beside a toy whale and a long felt eel.
Exhibit B · The problem Suzanna at the saxophone, in concert, 16 October 2015, with whale and eel. Venue undisclosed.
A painted nautilus on the sea floor, its many blue tentacles wrapped around a brass saxophone, bubbles and notes rising.
Exhibit C · Artist's impression Unauthorized. Some ninety tentacles compete for two dozen keys built for ten fingers. Note the congestion at the keywork.
Suzanna, a felt nautilus with a striped shell, pink gingham hood and purple button eye, sits in a bathtub of torn blue paper beside a long brass tube with a row of knobs, a small funnel and a curled spiral at one end.
Exhibit D · First sighting Bing Image Creator, from a description of NP-1. The artist took the scroll bell for decoration, put the cup at the wrong end, and lost a key. The subject is not yet playing. Under investigation.
Suzanna, a felt nautilus with a red-and-charcoal striped shell, pink gingham hood and purple button eye, plays a brass Nautiliphone in a bathtub sea of torn blue paper. Her yarn tentacles rest in bunches on a row of brass buttons along a curved brass tube that coils into a spiral at one end, with a funnel rising at the other and a ribbed brass float hanging beneath. Musical notes drift up from the coil.
Exhibit E · Sighting confirmed We did it! — Suzanna ChatGPT, from a description of NP-1, with brass buttons at Suzanna's request.

Plate II · Drawing NP-1

Prototype NP-1 PROTOTYPE

A first prototype, drawn from Suzanna's sketch. Not yet built; subject to her approval.

Blueprint of the Nautiliphone, prototype NP-1, side elevation, stamped PROTOTYPE: a coupling cup and reed under the player's funnel, a neck with tuning slide, a curved triple-bore body with eight paddle keys reached by bundled tentacles, a chambered float beneath, and a scroll bell. The player, Suzanna, is drawn dashed. Parts are lettered A to H, as listed below.

tap the drawing to open it full size

  1. ACoupling cup. Seals over her hyponome, so the jet she swims with is the wind. note 02
  2. BReed. Polymer; cane would waterlog.
  3. CNeck and tuning slide. Sets the written key, once Suzanna decides it. note 05
  4. DPaddle keys, eight. One per tentacle bundle, on a curved rail, as in the drawing. Wide, ridged touches for tentacles without suckers; silicone pads, since leather rots. note 03
  5. ETriple bore. After the Sardinian launeddas, which sounds three pipes from one breath: two melody pipes and a drone. This is what lets her play chords. section X–X
  6. FChambered float. Threaded by a siphuncle of its own, so she trims the instrument's buoyancy as she trims hers, and it hovers without being held. note 04
  7. GScroll bell. The bore coils like her shell; the music escapes here, as in the drawing.
  8. HPlayer. Suzanna, shown dashed.

Body: marine bronze or titanium. Brass loses its zinc in seawater.

Plate III · Operating procedure

How to play NP-1 PROTOTYPE

An engineering cartoon, not to scale

no tentacles wasted holding it up: FLOATS BY ITSELF
1 · HoverNP-1 floats on its chambered float, so not one tentacle is spent holding it up.
pfff! water in, over the gills FUNNEL out the funnel, into the cup: wind!
2 · CoupleFunnel into the cup. She breathes water over her gills and out through the funnel, so every breath is wind. Like a launeddas player, she never stops for air.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 hi! 8 BUNDLES × 11 TENTACLES = 88 +2 SPARE (waving)
3 · SortNinety tentacles: eight bundles of eleven, one bundle to a key, and two left over for waving to the audience.
MELODY MELODY DRONE three at once!
4 · PlayOne wind, three bores, three voices at once: two melodies and a drone, all pouring out of the scroll bell.

Notes per bar: a comparison

One bar of 4/4, as written for each player. Count them.

Human
44
Suzanna
4444
Human saxophonistSuzanna on NP-1
Digits10 fingers90 tentacles
Bores13
Notes at once13
Stops to breathebetween phrasesnever
Notes in the bar above472

Eighteen times the notes. Humans are advised to keep up.

Plate IV · Drawing NP-2

Prototype NP-2 PROTOTYPE

Suzanna's favourite. Eighty-eight brass pipes, eighty-eight notes at once. NP-1 stays on file.

Blueprint of the Nautiliphone, prototype NP-2, stamped PROTOTYPE. Plan view: eighty-eight pipes in two rings on a round wind chest, with tentacles radiating to each. Elevation: a brass bowl with pipes of graded length rising around Suzanna, drawn dashed with her shell up and tentacles down, each pipe ending in a small saxophone bell; a shell saddle, a pitch-bend slide and a vibrato paddle. Parts are lettered A to H, as listed below.

tap the drawing to open it full size

  1. AWind chest. A brass bowl under her funnel. Its hollow wall is the float, so NP-2 hovers as NP-1 did.
  2. BFree reeds. One brass reed at the foot of every pipe, as in a harmonica, or the Chinese sheng that NP-2 is modelled on.
  3. CEighty-eight pipes. Two rings, graded in length like a sheng's, each ending in a saxophone bell in miniature. Tallest at the sides, so the audience can see her.
  4. DTone-hole chimneys. No keys and no pads. As on a sheng, a pipe sounds only while its hole is covered, and one tentacle covers one hole: eighty-eight tentacles, eighty-eight pipes, a piano's worth. detail Y
  5. EShell saddle. A brass cradle that couples her shell to the chest. A living nautilus's chambers hold gas, and gas under water rings when sound reaches it, so her shell joins the band.
  6. FPitch-bend slide. Worked by spare tentacle one.
  7. GVibrato paddle. Worked by spare tentacle two. She can still wave between pieces.
  8. HPlayer. Suzanna, shown dashed: shell up and tentacles down, as in her own sketch.

Naval brass throughout: a little tin helps it resist the seawater that takes the zinc out of ordinary brass, which was NP-1's excuse. No mother-of-pearl anywhere. Nautiluses are killed for it.

Plate V · Operating procedure

How to play NP-2 PROTOTYPE

An engineering cartoon, not to scale, drawn under Suzanna's very curious supervision

SADDLE takes her shell CROWN OF 88
1 · SettleShe sinks into the crown of pipes until the brass saddle takes her shell. From here on, the gas in her shell's chambers rings with every note.
88 TENTACLES 88 HOLES 0 KEYS hold on!
2 · CoverEighty-eight tentacles, eighty-eight holes, no keys. A pipe sounds only while its hole is covered, so she plays by holding on.
88 at once! bend vibrato
3 · PlayEvery covered pipe sounds at once. One spare tentacle bends the pitch; the other works the vibrato.
hi! …9, 10, 11, um…
4 · EncoreA visiting saxophonist tries to count the notes and gives up somewhere after ten. Suzanna waves.

Notes at once: human saxophonist 1 · NP-1 3 · NP-2 88

DECLASSIFIED
(STILL SECRET)

Design notes

From the desk of Suzanna · published at the designer's insistence · it remains top secret

  1. Why not the saxophone

    The saxophone's keywork assumes ten fingers and two thumbs. A nautilus brings up to ninety tentacles, and none of them has a sucker; they grip with ridged pads. Spread ninety tentacles over two dozen keys and you get congestion, not music.

  2. Wind

    A nautilus has no lungs. She breathes by pumping water over four gills and swims by jetting water out of a funnel, the hyponome. The Nautiliphone takes its wind from the hyponome: the same squeeze that steers her through the water sounds the reed.

    Prior art: the water-blown hydraulophone. The arcanaphones file lists the other contenders.

  3. Keywork

    One key per tentacle is too many to build and too many to keep in adjustment. The drawing bundles the tentacles over a short, curved row of keys instead. Each bundle moves on its own, and the wind divides into three bores, so the instrument can sound chords, which a saxophone manages only by trickery.

  4. Bell and float

    The bore ends in a scroll that coils like her own shell, and the music escapes there. Beneath the body hangs a float, chambered like her shell and threaded by a siphuncle of its own. Her siphuncle trims her buoyancy; this one trims the instrument's, so it hovers in front of her and she never has to hold it.

    The shell is a logarithmic spiral, but not the golden one, whatever the posters say.

  5. Pitch

    Sound travels about four times faster in seawater than in air, so a tube full of water sounds roughly two octaves above the same tube full of air. The Nautiliphone is therefore a transposing instrument. Its written key is to be decided by Suzanna.

  6. Reading music

    The nautilus eye is a pinhole with no lens. Sight-reading is out; the repertoire is learned by ear.

  7. Concert hours

    Nautiluses spend the day a few hundred metres down and rise toward the surface at night. All performances begin after dark.

Open questions

Approved for display by
Suzanna