The amazing little paper-and-cardboard organ in this video from Aliaksei Zholner defies categorization. It’s not quite a pipe organ (no pipes), nor a pump organ (no pump). Let’s just say it’s a balloon organ, if that’s a thing.
A purple balloon blows air through the instrument’s wee paper guts to produce its sound. There’s a fantastic amount of precision work going on in here—just getting the octave-plus worth of notes in tune must have been a monumental, and delicate, task. Zholner points out in his YouTube note that even the thickness of the paper matters.
He should know. Zholner’s the proprietor of what he calls the “working paper model channel” on YouTube. It’s full of fascinating little handmade devices, including a four-cylinder engine, a vehicle with a V-8 engine, and a mobile rocket launcher. Never underestimate the power of the purple balloon.
