How Blue Man Group Makes Their Instruments

When it comes to Blue Man Group's instruments, almost everything is made by hand. PVC pipes and other industrial materials are par for the course. We got to peek inside the studio to see some of the latest creations from the Blue Man team.
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Following is the transcript of the video:
Andrew Schneider: These PVC tube instruments, that is a three dollar piece of plastic you can buy at Lowe's and that is part of what's exciting about how would someone, a musical being, look at this for the first time, what would they want to do with it?
Ben Flint: The instruments come about, I think every one is a little bit different. Anybody can bring an idea to the table. Our tone mill was one of our Blue Men that drew a sketch.
Schneider: The concept of this is that you have different tubes and then the length of the tube is creating the pitch, the note. By having two, you can have a chord. Potentially, you can use a stick or you can use another tube that has its own note to create a chord.
This is another piece, another instrument that we're working on for a piece that's being developed about feedback. There's a speaker on one end, there's a microphone on the other end and you, when you put a microphone at a speaker, it causes feedback. And, with the pipe, we can tune it to be different notes. Where the struggle is, is that every day we walk in, the notes are totally different. We're now being inspired by the challenge to try and find a way to make this actually workable and tunable every night.
So we're trying to find an instrument that could drone in a similar way as didgeridoo but, obviously, have different playing aspects and something that was, again, theatrically something that was visual and had a lot of action to it. It's kind of inspired by a hurdy-gurdy style instrument. You're bowing this and then changing the note with this lever.
Flint: Similar concept, we've got two higher strings here, just music wire, something you have on a piano. And, this wheel that you spin, and then very sophisticated, we have zip ties cut to a little over a half an inch. And, when you rotate this, you are plucking the strings and then we have this slider which is fretting and we've come up with our own musical language here, the Blue Men speak in colors and shapes when reading music.
Schneider: So we basically took a vibraphone and split it apart onto a separate sort of playable platform that can be a lot more visual as an instrument. So these are actual vibraphone keys and then there's pickups underneath each one so that we can now run it through whatever fun pedals we want to do - we want to run it through, so.

[@JustinY.]

Through the miracle of engineering, those creations are born.

[@thatguynamedyash]

Hey guys stop liking his comments 🔪🔪

[@celineas8086]

Justin Y. 😒

[@sugoiz4276]

Why are u here legendary commenter?

[@tianguyen5649]

Daily Tips why?

[@tianguyen5649]

LDCrazycat Lady what’s with that face lmao

[@CuriosityCulture]

Music and engineering. The best combination in my opinion ;)

[@sssaa5065]

Bruh I see u comment all the time

[@rismapuspitawati6952]

Yeah, like Food and Architect... They made new look and taste amazing...

[@davidmcaninch4714]

Musengineering

[@ishata4824]

That’s what I call being creative !!

[@MoxieBeast]

ok i never really knew what blue man group was besides a concert with blue guys and a running joke on AD

[@jadecummings8093]

Wow..........That's incredible! 😃😉👍👍💯

[@deandraperry6174]

Insider I love them

[@lyricshelper2042]

This is actually pretty cool

[@unhappysmilesofficial156]

The vibes thing was really cool

[@jooniepop1387]

Music + me = awesomeness

[@maxkumets5473]

I love insider

[@cardboardbox9977]

I want to hear about what the original blue men had to go thru to create instruments before they could afford musical designers, engineers, producers, etc.

[@madsisswagg]

I have a suggestion, its a museum that I have lately visited, so you can mix up the locations for once. It’s the mind museum in Manila Philippines

[@slayy8670]

The 3rd instrument remindsme of a baeblade

[@SlyHikari03]

the feedback stuff is cool. same for the affected vibraphone.

[@c-lao]

The deconstructwd vibes reminds me of Future Retro

[@Vedantttt]

My life has changed

[@Vedantttt]

Wow

[@arcelipeters2602]

The beauty of weird instruments.

[@carterstacy5318]

Woah.

[@jayplaysgames6461]

Interesting

[@retasyavieralambert2705]

Amazinggg!!! 😍😁😁😁😁😁😁😄😄😄😄😄😆😆

[@Sphyxx]

2:10 Enter sandman by Metallica.

[@Marion-ho3jq]

i saw one of their shows

[@jett2333]

“It had been the first time Tobias had blew him self in 5 years”

[@fgfg633]

Didn't know they were still around.

[@esania1443]

The cover theme tho :0

[@julea1500]

parece os cara do comercial da tim

[@kaylajackson4765]

Do they still perform?

[@dantyrrell5369]

I'm looking for footage and explanation of the Grand Piano that Blue Man Group used that had all the strings tuned to the same note. Help???

[@CatBot007]

Its MIDI the strings are actually fishing line

[@markfrancis3697]

Rad!!

[@victoriamartinez5265]

I'm #34 yaaaay I love your vids insider

[@avagarcia-blacker796]

Hello

[@kaylakris8261]

Met them 2 weeks ago

[@talkingidiot4227]

Hi

[@jadetovar958]

there really cool but freak me out at the same time

[@carmenb1795]

Hiiiii

[@notmjonlr405]

I the creator is Australian the instrument looks like came from future

[@i3poch716]

Noice

[@bitchass1004]

Funny men them blues

[@shilloe13]

I'm early and have no idea what to comment......but whoever seeing this have a nice day😊😊😉

[@sssaa5065]

Shivani Narendran have a great day

[@corey-bird3489]

Shivani Narendran Then don't comment, geez

[@greylark2759]

Sheesh

[@peechiee]

Hiiiiiii

[@mikoru348]

I'm moving to mars

[@Keith7BIP7Feraren]

Where’s Tobias?

[@claudiatrevino7548]

maybe 2# comment

[@diondevolli5845]

Sup

[@joshua3400]

I’M BLUE DABUDIDABUDIE

[@shereali643]

Use ur ear/headphone😕

[@supremekermit2603]

O

[@sydneyrose213]

Early 20th comment!

[@VigneshJ27]

#7th comment

[@keribunnie468]

106th person to like

[@kieash]

48th viewer and 9th commenter

[@TURK_182]

Kiran Ash no one cares

[@kieash]

T U R K - 1 8 2 no-one asked you

[@TURK_182]

What is the significance of being 48th viewer & 9th commenter, why would other people want to know that from your point of view? Sorry I wasn't trying to be mean I just don't understand why people comment this all the time

[@corey-bird3489]

Kiran Ash TALK ABOUT THE VIDEO

[@dubimbap]

early

[@corey-bird3489]

oreoCorn rblx Enjoy your worm

[@KrazyProductions]

can they play I'm blue abadebadadie

[@seherm.5591]

*insert comment about brockhampton*

[@ClutchyGamingPubg]

253 views and 27comments and i 28th commenter.....

[@TURK_182]

kunal the hero! That's not an accomplishment

[@jinjo3100]

Workable and tunable for an instrument that changes pitch? That's where the time wasting comedy comes in, nothing wrong with tuning your toy mid show

[@omgdSm]

no one will like this comment i bet!

[@corey-bird3489]

Denzelled I don't like that it has nothing to do with Blue Man Group

[@omgdSm]

cheers mate i needed to know that lol

[@no_5108]

Hello