Whacky Music

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A decade later, Ramsell has sold more than 3.5 million of his percussion tubes, called Boomwhackers. Tuned by length, the brightly colored tubes make music when struck with a mallet or on any surface, including parts of the player's body. Hit two tubes together, and you have harmony.

The tubes have a range of two and a half octaves, with 32 different notes, from the low C, which is 50.49 inches long, to a high G, a mere 7.57 inches. The outside diameter of each tube is 1.75 inches. Putting a specially designed cap on the end of a tube lowers its pitch exactly one octave.

Music has long been a big part of Ramsell's life. He played French horn in his junior-high-school orchestra in Waterloo, IA, and, later, guitar in a local rock band. After college, he worked at Columbia Records, helping manage a department that put out greatest-hits albums. After that, he moved to California. While pursuing a career in corporate finance, he learned the classical guitar and performed at clubs and weddings.

Then came the Boomwhackers discovery. His company, Whacky Music, now has 13 employees. Boomwhackers have gained a following at specialty toy shops and on the Internet. Music educators in particular have found the instrument to be a low-cost and effective way to teach the principles of rhythm, melody, and harmony.

Last year the Parents' Choice Foundation, which produces a consumer guide to children's products, named Boomwhackers one of the 25 top toys of the past 25 years, in the same league as Rubik's Cube and Pictionary Junior.

"Craig had this crazy idea, and it has grown a little more than he thought," says Judy Pine, vice president of the catalogue division at West Music in Coralville, IA, one of the first mail-order companies to carry Boomwhackers. "He just wants kids of all ages to have fun."

Those "kids" have included 1,100 alumni who gathered in Kresge Auditorium during Tech Reunions 1997, when Whacky Music was in its infancy. Ramsell led them in what he called a "spontaneous musical experience." The response he received that day encouraged him to continue the pursuit of his dream.

"The largest group I'd ever led at the time was 10, but I'd done a couple of workshops, and I had some ideas about working on rhythm and tempo," he says. "The alumni really got into it."