If you don’t love every vegetable out there, this guy might change your mind. Junji Koyama has figured out how to take a carrot, a potato, or a head of broccoli, and turn it into a musical instrument. In this video he takes a drill, like you’d use on wood, and drills right into a carrot to make a tube. Then he cuts a notch for the air to come through, and drills tiny holes to play notes. When he blows into it, wow, it’s a carrot flute! Junji also did this with other veggies, played Happy Birthday on each of them, and then ran the videos all at the same time; it sounds pretty amazing — and shows that we SHOULD play with our food.
Wee ones: In “Happy Birthday” Junji plays a carrot, broccoli, potato, and Japanese radish. How many veggies does he play?
Little kids: If Junji plays on his carrot the notes C, E, G, then back to C to repeat, what’s the 7th note he plays? Bonus: What number note is the 3rd G?
Big kids: If 6 musicians each want 4 of his musical veggies, how many veggies does he have to carve? Bonus: If the musicians eat 1/3 of their veggies before ever playing them, how many veggies are left to play?
The sky’s the limit: If Junji buys a total of 48 veggies, and there are 4 more broccoli stems than potatoes and 4 more carrots than broccoli stems, how many of each instrument will he have?
Answers:
Wee ones: 4 veggies.
Little kids: C. Bonus: The 9th, since it’s the end of the 3rd set of 3.
Big kids: 24 veggies. Bonus: 16 vegetables, since they ate 8.
The sky’s the limit: 12 potatoes, 16 broccoli and 20 carrots. The mental-math shortcut is that if there are 4 fewer potatoes than broccoli and 4 more carrots than broccoli, that’s the same total as equal numbers of all 3 veggies, which would be 16 of each. That gives us 16 broccoli as before. plus 4 fewer potatoes (12 total) and 4 more carrots (20 total).