So last night was this thing called Acker Musical Showcase, or Acker Night, as they say, and it’s a really neat festival that happens the first or second Friday of December in which nearly every single business – shop, restaurant, art gallery, etc. – in downtown Prescott all host a musical act or two. You can wander from place to place, enjoying hot chocolate and cookies, while listening to all kinds of different musical performances.

Flute quartets or quintets, some guy on a keyboard singing, small band ensembles, choral ensembles, a jug band, steel drum band, all kinds of tribute bands, jazz bands and choral groups, barbershop quartets, the list goes on and on.

Then there’s my band – we play something that we call a tubulum. It’s a musical instrument made out of PVC pipes. Here’s a picture:

They have a really neat sound, and you can google for a video or three of different ones in action. It sounds like a synthesizer, but is completely analog, simply a vibrating column of air tuned by the pipe. We used paddles made from cut up flip-flops, of all things.

The instrument itself was inspired by a similar one used by the Blue Man Group, although I think ours is a bit more sophisticated. We can play just about anything on it, and we’re constantly coming up with new arrangements.

If you ever find yourself in Prescott, AZ during Acker Night, you can find us playing there. Make sure you grab a program as you’re wandering around and look for Twisted Tubes!

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