The Straw Oboe is a fairly common instrument – you can google it and come up with quite a bit on the topic. Here’s a quick step-through of how to make one:
1. Gently flatten one end using your fingers or teeth.
2. Cut off the sides of the flattened portion, about a quarter to half an inch down, so that you end up with two flaps. If you look at the graphic below, you can see how to cut it.
Here’s the tricky part – getting it to make the sound:
3. Place the flaps into your mouth so that the flaps are up and down (parallel to the top and bottom of your mouth) and totally inside your mouth
4. Don’t bite down on the straw, but close your lips around the straw and then tighten your lips (like as if you were going to make an elephant sound). Blow. Give it some time – it takes a little practice to make it buzz. But once you do, you quickly remember how to do it.
So how does it work? Well, a real oboe has two wood reeds that vibrate against each other to create the sound. This works in much the same way, only the “reeds” are the two plastic flaps of the drinking straw. The vibrations from the flaps travel down the tube of the straw to create the sound you hear.
Try making oboes out of different diameters of straws, cut down the size of the straw, insert one straw into another, use paper to create a cone to amplify the sound – there’s so much you can do to modify this little instrument. HAVE FUN!