Why wasn’t the seashell whistle flute discovered or made before 2003? The shape of the seashell species,Terebra Turritella, which I use to make into whistle flutes, has remained the same for millions of years. A few people comment that surely, during all that time, someone else would have discovered how to make one before I did. That is precisely what the physicists that study acoustic musical instruments thought when I presented them with my discovery in 2007.

Before Rollins College Physics Dept. began analyzing the seashell whistle flute, as a new musical instrument, they searched the world for a precedent. None was found. Why not? People have been making musical instruments out of naturally occurring objects since the dawn of time. To find a new one now, one that releases the diatonic and chromatic musical scales without the use of measurements or calculations of any sort, is unprecedented. Here’s what I think:

The snail species that makes the shell,Terebra Turritella, inhabits many coastal areas of the world’s oceans. Warm and tropical waters that surround the Philippine Islands allow the species to grow much larger than it does in cooler, subtropical waters, such as those surrounding Florida. Shells between four and seven inches long are needed to make whistle flutes in the keys of B, C, D and E and only grow that large in the tropics.

The ‘acorn cap whistle technique’ is used to resonate the air inside the hollow, tightly coiled, spiral Terebra Turritella shell. This technique is an ancient and somewhat obscure signaling skill originally employing large acorn caps as whistle devices. Oaks trees that produce large acorn caps don’t grow in the tropics. So it stands to reason that people living in the tropics, where Terebra Turritella shells grow large, never learned of the acorn cap whistle skill or applied it to their local shells. It’s a temperate climate skill of origin.

Modern high speed rotary drills and split tip titanium drill bits used for drilling small holes through ceramic tiles are relatively recent inventions. These kinds of tools have only become available to the general public during the last fifty years or so. Before that they were probably available for other industrial applications, but at higher costs than $65 now.

People drilled holes into shells prior to the invention of high speed rotary drills, but it took a long time to drill each hole by hand. One would think that the maker of the hole would have to have a very good reason for performing the time consuming task. Shells are extremely hard, crystalline objects. I suspect holes were drilled through shells for more utilitarian purposes, such as making buttons, jewelry, tools, wampum and the like.

The business of selling seashells from around the world in small ‘mom and pop’ shell shops, is a relatively recent development due to advances in the shipping industry. Now, ordinary people living in temperate climates have access to tropical seashells.

The seashell whistle flute was discovered/developed by applying the temperate climate ‘acorn cap whistle technique’ to a seashell from the tropics. A straight line of five pitch holes, following the lengthwise axis line of the shell, makes it possible to play an octave and a half of diatonic notes. No mathematical calculations or measurements are needed to accomplish this. The shell takes care of the math.

I’ve been told by physicists that the shape of the Terebra Turritella seashell is an Archimedean or logarithmic spiral. I’ve also read that the diatonic musical scale of notes is a logarithmic (or geometric) progression of frequencies. Anyone can repeat my experiments and produce the same results every time.

Michael’s new family of seashell wind instruments continued to amaze and delight visitors at his farmer’s market vending booth in Florida and Massachusetts. That was the year, however, that the housing market collapsed and a world wide recession began. Both he and Dana struggled to grow their businesses in a rapidly shrinking economy. He wondered what he should do next.

An accident provided Michael with an opportunity he wasn’t expecting. His father fell down and broke his hip. Michael moved to Winter Park, Florida to care for him during his long recovery. While there he began to vend at a local farmer’s market in downtown Orlando. That’s where he found out about Rollins College.

A Rollins College music major told him that Rollins College Physics Department studies how acoustic musical instruments work and that he should ask them if they would study his new instruments. He made an appointment with the dean of the department. They met several times and eventually his seashell flute was accepted as a research project.

The dean told Michael that there are only a few college level physics departments in all of North America that have labs equipped to study how acoustic musical instruments work. Michael’s father just happened to live ten minutes away from one of the top physics labs in the country dedicated to doing this type of research.

Over the following years Michael met with the research team many times. They analyzed the sounds produced by the seashell flute and eventually submitted a research paper to the Journal of Sound and Vibration for publication. The research paper was rejected after peer review however because more research needed to be done to fully explain why the seashell flute works.

The conclusion of the research paper states: “we do not have a firm understanding of the air resonances of a pipe in the shape of a logarithmic spiral. Our data indicate that a simple model that works well for straight pipes, and pipes with few toroidal bends, does not accurately predict the impedance of a logarithmic spiral cavity with holes. This anomalous behavior will be the subject of future research.”

Five years later they still don’t know why it works. Perhaps someone reading this article may be able to explain it. The author will respond to any research inquiries.

Thank you for taking the time to read this story. Dana and Michael continue to be friends. She cares for her parents and their properties on Cape Cod.

Michael cares for his aging father in Florida and continues to vend his new family of seashell musical instruments at farmer’s markets and music festivals throughout Florida. He has become a skilled ‘Shellist’. That’s one who plays seashells as musical instruments.

Dana and Michael left Provincetown and returned to the cottage, where he immediately began to experiment with his twelve new Screw Shells.

He bought a high speed rotary drill and split tip titanium drill bits used for drilling through ceramic tile. Without these modern tools he never would have continued his experiments. Shells are just too hard to drill holes through, using a conventional carpenter’s drill. (It must have taken indigenous peoples a long time to drill holes through shells, without the benefit of electric drills and metal drill bits.)

Michael drilled five small holes through the shell, under where his finger tips touched the shell (while using the acorn cap whistle technique to resonate the air inside the shell). His finger tip pads naturally touched whorls 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8, counting from the shell opening (aperture). He heard the musical notes Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti and Do when he uncovered the pitch holes, in sequence, beginning from the pointy end (apex). The notes didn’t sound perfect to him, at this point in the experiments, but they were close.

It wasn’t until he straightened out the line of pitch holes, following the lengthwise axis line of the shell, that the musical notes became perfect. Further experiments with pitch hole size released the chromatic musical notes. He then discovered how to play the second half-octave of notes. Incredibly, the shell released an octave and a half of perfect diatonic and chromatic musical notes, all without the use of mathematical measurements or calculations of any sort.

There is a relationship between the logarithmic spiral shape of the Screw Shell, the straight line of five pitch holes (in whorls 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8 that follow the shell’s lengthwise axis line) and the diatonic scale of notes. Approximately sixty five million years before Michael drilled the five pitch holes, the shell contained the latent ability to release, what is known today as, the Western scale of musical notes.

The first song Michael learned to play on his new seashell flute was ‘Amazing Grace’.   The second was ‘Take Me Out To The Ball Game’. And he wondered if other people would be able to play this new musical instrument.