Holiday Noises Workshop

Since the holidays are here and kids are stumbling by the millions onto uncharted landscapes of free time, some directed silliness is certainly in order; to wit, an Odds Bodkin Weird Noises Workshop. So here's an on-line experience that you and your child can produce with your very own mouths -- one of the strangest yet convincing vocal effects found anywhere in the human condition. Ringing crickets.

I've been a weird little kid for nigh on four decades now. At the age of eight, I recall walking down my neighborhood street voicing high- pitched pipings like a Vienna Choir Boy gone ballistic. That piping was my sound moniker, my private signal to the vast universe that yes, I was alive and living right there on my block -- the axis mundi apparently -- as all our childhood neighborhoods certainly are.

It never occurred to me that those screams probably caused the nice neighborhood moms buttering toast inside their kitchen windows to jump out of their skins. No, I was just a kid -- oblivious, therefore, to everything but the joy of repeatedly, ad nauseam, announcing myself to the universe.

Now in these modern times, most children still possess the primal urge to make weird noises and thereby announce themselves, but instead suffer in silence because their toys and projection devices make all their noises for them. This is not a good development.

I outwitted the world by becoming a storyteller who makes weird noises to his heart's content. So here is one for you and your child, to help pass those uncharted hours...

The Ringing Crickets Vocal Effect
This is a dual sound effect. In other words, you have to create two sounds with your mouth simultaneously. But like magic, the crickets will emerge. Trust me.

PART I: The Tongue Flutter
First, locate the tip of your tongue. No, you don't have to touch it, just become aware of it and where it happens to be lounging in your mouth. Now become aware of what I'll call the leading edge of your tongue (the tip of your tongue is in the middle of it). Press your tongue's leading edge to the roof of your mouth just behind your front incisors and breath out. You should set up a vibrating flutter. Practice the vibrating flutter until you make it rapid. A couple of seconds' should suffice for some of you, while for others less gifted in foolish things like this, well, who knows?

PART II: The Whistle
The second element of The Ringing Crickets Sound Effect is whistling. If you haven't learned to whistle yet, take a couple of days in a closet somewhere and teach yourself. In college, friends of mine and I used to stroll across the quadrangle whistling Bach's Brandenburg Concertos. You don't have to be fanatical about whistling for this effect, however. All you need to do is produce a whistle tone. A modest one is just fine.

PART III: Putting It All Together
Okay, now for the big moment. Perform your Tongue Flutter and The Whistle at the same time! Ta Da! What do you hear? Crickets! Now just release your breath in short bursts to mimic the pulses of cricket songs, and you've got it. Quite the marvel, don't you think?

Other than teaching your child to announce herself or himself to the universe as a cricket, think of the many applications for this fine skill. Here's just one: if your boss hollers at you, leaving you insecure just in time for the holidays, you can always look her or him right in the eyes, get the leading edge of your tongue ready, and say:

"Okay, sure, but can you do this?"

More on: Christmas Activities and Resources for the Whole Family