Courtesy of www.henrikkamberla.com

Techeye has three strict guidelines for surviving the summer. These are cardinal rules born of long experience: Never accept a dare involving watermelons and velcro. Never take viagra at the beach. And never, under any circumstance, attend a concert involving popular music and strange instruments.

“Stairway to Dixieland: Led Zeppelin meets dueling banjos,” “Public Enemy: Throat warbled like never before,” “My Frog Will Go On. An evening of Celine Dion’s greatest hits, performed on… amphibians!” – these are a few of the foul, soul-withering summer “concerts” which we were forced to attend during our youth. Never again.

Indeed, the emotional pain these faux entertainment events inflicted on us had a major impact on the formation of Techeye’s adult personality. Celine Dion’s music still sends us diving into the nearest cupboard, for example.

Yet summer is the time of year when music is perhaps most important, bringing people together in joyous celebration of their very humanity. It rejuvenates the elderly and sets children into spontaneous, usually hilarious motion. Music is, in other words, life.

At least that’s what it said in a fortune cookie Techeye once got. For our own part, we love summer and open air concerts, but we usually bring our own cupboard with us. Just in case.

What does this have to do with technology? So far, not much. But in pondering our summer survival rules, we got to thinking about the kind of musical abuse we suffered as a child and it seemed like a good idea to focus this column on evil musical gadgetry.

First of all, there’s the Pilcrow, “a new kind of musical instrument that combines elements from string and percussion instruments as well as idiophones.” Invented by a Finnish design student named Henrik Amberla, you play the Pilcrow by rubbing a steel rod “up and down the saddle” while banging it at intervals with a stick. Oddly erotic, that.

In his demo video, Mr Amberla first plays Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” which sounds a bit like Stanley Kubrick rolling his face across a mellotron. Then he adds a jagged pedal effect, cranks the Pilcrow up to 11 and plays… “Ode to Joy.” If you know any musically inclined nerds who love Beethoven, this looks like a good gift. We didn’t find price details, but you can contact Mr Amberla at www.henrikamberla.com.

Courtesy of Trinity

In any case, the good people at Evenno requested we point out that Simplism (a maker of Apple peripherals) and Evenno are brands owned by Trinity Inc, and that the Fingerist is currently available in Japan and the US (at a cost of $150). Trinity is in fact looking for a Polish distributor for its brands’ products if, anybody’s interested.

Techeye would love to see the gadget take off in Poland, torturing parents across the nation. But please, for the love of all that’s holy, let there be no Fingerist-themed concerts.

Ever throat warbled a classic gangsta rap tune? Let us know: techeye@wbj.pl