For music class Nicky had to make a new musical instrument. She made, with a little help of daddy, a musical bike. I fixed a tin can on it like we used to make every saturday before Whit Sunday, we called it "Luilak", Lazy-Bones. The children got out bed very early and woke up erveryone with a lot of noise. The rope you see on the picture contains a little white spirit and vibrates when you ride the bike. The frequency varies with the speed, so when you drive faster the tone goes up to a whining sharp terrible sound. Nicky's best friend Nikki danced on the schoolyard on the tones of the "Fiets-Gil-Gitaar". The class went crazy when they heard the bike and Nicky scored a 10 (an A).
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What is the function of the white spirit (AKA Stoddard Solvent or "mineral spirits" in the US)? Is the tire rubbing against the twine? Just curious.
On Halloween when I was a child, we would take some cotten twine, soak it in kerosene (parafin oil), tie some big nails to either end, insert one nail into the overlapping seam of the clapboard siding on a house and use a homemade "violin bow" to turn the whole house into a frightening musical instrument. The oil prevented the bow string from cutting through the house string. It was scary sounding.
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