Halo Neuroscience Blog – 7.30.18 (7.27.18)
In his stand-up show Definite Article, comedian Eddie Izzard recounts his struggles learning to play clarinet in grade school. It sounded, he says, “like a foghorn being dragged through a place foghorns shouldn’t be dragged.” The technique of breathing and blowing to vibrate the reed, called embouchure, “was like blowing into a weasel.” That was the squawking sound it made, too: “WEASel! WEASel!” His father, he jokes, offered him a hammer to destroy the thing.
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