Crazy Insrument Installment 3

So it has been a while since I've talked about a truly odd instrument, and because of this I dug up one with the most curious picture. It is called the Bikelophone and it looks a little something like this:

As you may have gathered by the name and a brief glance at the BlueMan-esque contraption in the picture, the keystone of this instrument is indeed a bicycle. Brought into the music world only 14 years ago for the sake of the The Lyle and Sparkleface Band, the Bikelophone can create sounds akin to a soft harp or loud and metallic like crashing cymbals.

The bike part of the mechanism works chiefly as an amplifier by way of magnetic pickups. Anything that is attached to the bike then becomes amplified and can be manipulated. This particular model includes: bass strings, scrap wood and metal, bowls, telephone bells, a mechanical foot pedal, and a touch sensitive tone generator.

Now if you are asking: "But what is a magnetic pickup?" then this next paragraph is for you. A Pickup in general is something that acts as a transducer, or rather something that converts one type of energy or physical occurrence into another for the purpose of information transfer(sometimes other things but mostly this). The pickup is used to capture the actual movement or vibrations caused by the strings of a stringed instrument that have been played in some manner. It then changes this mechanical occurrence into an electronic signal that can be understood by computers which can then record or amplify the sound produced. A magnetic pickup accomplished this by way of magnetic coil which is usually mounted on the instrument intended for amplification. The vibrations caused by the instrument are picked up by the magnetic circuit and transferred to the recording or amplification apparatus by way of cable. To put it simply.

To listen to the sounds of the Bikeolophone click: here

Very Punny
I tried to come up with a good flute pun, but I blew it.