OK, this isn't American woodworking or one of my projects, so it's a little off topic, but I just can't resist sharing a link my daughter in Japan sent me for a YouTube video. It's an http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_CDLBTJD4M assembled in a forest. Apparently the video is somewhat of a promotion for a company called Touch Wood that makes wooden cell phone covers, but you'll hardly notice the promotion at the end. I have 30 acres in Maine that slopes about 200 feet from the top of the land down to a huge waterfall. I would love to build a contraption like this there. Now that's a project!

That is too cool. I love the way the did the timing in the music but changing the direction and speed of the ball. You are right, what a project, but that would be so neat.

 

John

Hello Will,

That was something as well as interesting. However I am wondering who will carry the ball back up to the top?

What would be even more interesting would be that it played a definite tune coming down from the top.

That was really nice. Thanks Will.

Beautiful Will! I found myself cheering the little ball on, do not stop now! Thanks for showing us. Without disclosing personal information you don't want to, can you tell us about the exciting reason your daughter is in Japan for? Or at least I am assuming it's an exciting adventure for her.

Thanks again Will for coming over to share, that was awesome.

Well, let's say it got more exciting after the earthquake, although thankfully she's about 500 miles from the danger zone. She's in her last year of college trying to finish a degree in Japanese Studies and figured that would best be done in Japan. She had previously spent four months in Tokyo a couple of years ago, but she made the apparently fortuitous decision this time to choose a university in southwestern Japan because that would introduce her to a different dialect. She also wanted a homestay experience instead of living in an apartment or dorm in the city for a more fully immersed experience. I think those were good choices. And now, after the quake and tsunami, she's safe where she is, and some of her friends who are students in Tokyo are being moved to her school for safety reasons. She's in Itami, if you want to find it on a map. It's near Kobe.

John Morris said:

Beautiful Will! I found myself cheering the little ball on, do not stop now! Thanks for showing us. Without disclosing personal information you don't want to, can you tell us about the exciting reason your daughter is in Japan for? Or at least I am assuming it's an exciting adventure for her.

Thanks again Will for coming over to share, that was awesome.

Ralph, it is a definite tune. It's not the whole thing but it is a piece of J.S. Bach's cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (Heart and Mouth and Deed and Life), BWV 147.

Ralph Allen Jones said:

Hello Will,

That was something as well as interesting. However I am wondering who will carry the ball back up to the top?

What would be even more interesting would be that it played a definite tune coming down from the top.

I recognized it, I didn't know who the composer was, but I recognized it from my classical roots, mom played classical in the house all day long. And now my daughter has picked up the torch with her violin. I am relearning all the composers all over again.

Will Sampson said:

Ralph, it is a definite tune. It's not the whole thing but it is a piece of J.S. Bach's cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (Heart and Mouth and Deed and Life), BWV 147.

Ralph Allen Jones said:

Hello Will,

That was something as well as interesting. However I am wondering who will carry the ball back up to the top?

What would be even more interesting would be that it played a definite tune coming down from the top.

Oh, for goodness sake. I guess if it ain't country music no wonder I didn't recognise it.
That's all my radio will play.
Will Sampson said:

Ralph, it is a definite tune. It's not the whole thing but it is a piece of J.S. Bach's cantata 

Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben

(

Heart and Mouth and Deed and Life

), BWV 147.

Ralph Allen Jones said:

Hello Will,

That was something as well as interesting. However I am wondering who will carry the ball back up to the top?

What would be even more interesting would be that it played a definite tune coming down from the top.

Ralph, my radio plays mostly country, too, but I love Baroque music like J.S. Bach, as well. I always figured bluegrass was just country done Baroque style and played on guitars, banjos, fiddles and mandolins. Mark O'Connor, who is an amazing country and bluegrass fiddler, has also written violin concertos and performed with symphonies. It's all just music, even if it's a ball bouncing on wooden sticks in the woods. 

Ralph Allen Jones said:

Oh, for goodness sake. I guess if it ain't country music no wonder I didn't recognise it.

That's all my radio will play.

Will Sampson said:

Ralph, it is a definite tune. It's not the whole thing but it is a piece of J.S. Bach's cantata 

Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben

(

Heart and Mouth and Deed and Life

), BWV 147.

Ralph Allen Jones said:

Hello Will,

That was something as well as interesting. However I am wondering who will carry the ball back up to the top?

What would be even more interesting would be that it played a definite tune coming down from the top.

 Yea, that's pretty amazing. It's amazing that the ball doesn't seem to gain speed going down the hill and that ball doesn't' fall off the instrument.

 

And what's more amazing is it just kisses the phone cover at the end and then stops!

Richard McComas said:

 Yea, that's pretty amazing. It's amazing that the ball doesn't seem to gain speed going down the hill and that ball doesn't' fall off the instrument.