music toys

Bontempi

I had this white plastic toy mouth organ with colored keys. You blew air into one end, and could press the yellow and orange and green and blue and purple buttons to make notes. Tiny valves opened. For a cheap toy, it was well-made; there were an octave’s worth of notes, in half-steps, 12 tones in all, enough to play any song by ear. And I did, outside under the sun and the big trees in the yard, in the endless hours kids used to spend outside.

I complain now that my parents didn’t do enough to support my musical ability, but at least they tried. They bought me toys: a mouth organ, a calliope. The calliope was a sad thing with an ordinary rubber balloon attached. The kind you’d get in a bag with a hundred of its fellows for 99 cents. It had a big plastic pump handle, like a bicycle pump. You would fit an elastic balloon over the opening, pump it up, then enjoy about 30 seconds of music while the balloon wheezed out its contents.

Then there was the Bontempi organ. I loved this thing. It came with a book of songs–obscure tunes and old nursery rhymes. Oh do you know the muffin man? Who lives in the public domain? I sat there and learned to play, arhythmically, delighted that these markings on the page translated to music I could make by pressing my fingers on the keys.

1. To go into physical matter feels compressed.