What are Bambonks?

They are a simple support structure with a bamboo* tube pivoting near its balance point. In its rest state the open end of the tube points up, and is so arranged that water drips into it.

When enough water has dribbled into the top portion of the bamboo tube, the tube tips down and discharges the water, causing the tube to again tilt upward and receive more water.

The tube may be arranged to hit a rock or block of wood on the downswing, and then do the same on the upswing. These rocks, or blocks, or bottles, or gongs or cymbals - whatever you can contrive to be struck - may be chosen and arranged to make a variety of noises, most of which will fascinate you and annoy your neighbors.

If you are enthusiastic enough to make more than one of these things and you don't control the mechanical parameters - tube size, water flow rate, fulcrum, etc - and then line them all up and set them loose, you can get yourself a sort of impromptu musical kind of klonky thing the likes of which might please John Cage or Steve Reich or someone like that. The chances of annoying a neighbor or significant other are also greatly increased.

It is avowed that these are a Japanese invention and it's likely i first saw one in a movie or something. It's also said that they will keep deer and raccoons out of gardens. I can state that they have not kept raccoons and possums from eating fallen fruit just feet away from them once the animals got the idea that the bambonks** weren't going to come after them.

Keep in mind that with some fussing about you can direct the water from the bambonk to irrigate some plant or other so that you don't feel as though you are wasting water. I don't know what the plants think about the sound - i'd like to imagine they enjoy the stimulation. Our Cereus cactus has been solely watered by bambonk this year, and if the frenetic manner in which it has been blooming is in any way related to the activity - then they are very effective at it.

Just click away through the next 3 pages to see the following quicktime movies which are 300 to 400k - and then after that there's a 5MB binaural recorded mp3 of 4 bonks in realtime on a quiet night in San Diego.

*The tube and hardware can actually be made of anything - 8 inch stainless steel pipe comes to mind...
** i call them "bambonks." There are words for them in several languages - words which i may have known at some point and which if remembered i will post here. Meanwhile - i like bambonk as the california english word so you're stuck with it for now.