Wednesday, December 9, 2015

The thunder tube - a compact prop for creating sound effects






































Sometimes a speech calls for sound effects. Fred E. Miller mentions thunder in a 2010 blog post titled Props can help the audience GET IT! Here are some great ones! 

My sister Ellen just sent me a Remo Thunder Tube. As shown above, it is just a 7” long by 2-1/4” diameter plastic tube with a 17” coil-spring tail protruding from a drumhead on one end. You can find it at Amazon or American Science and Surplus





Watch Robert Fishbone’s four-minute Thunder Tube Tutorial.

A “thunder sheet” is another less compact prop for producing thunder sound effects. Older ways are discussed in a blog post on How to make stage thunder and lightning: 1829 - 1900.

If you are very talented comedian and actor like Michael Winslow, you can make thousands of sound effects without any prop other than a microphone. There are YouTube videos of him doing a car alarm and other things on the Jimmy Fallon show, and on other TV shows in Kansas City and London

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