Ice cream and ice can be used as, or as part of, musical instruments. Here are two instances.
This patent concerns an invention in the field known (in a phrase auto-translated from the original Chinese into English) as “cartoon belt music ice cream”:
“Cartoon music ice cream,” Chinese patent application 2476961 Y, filed May 16, 2001. The document says:
“The utility model belongs to the field of ice cream in foodstuff, in particular to a cartoon belt music ice cream. A push pull rod music structure is arranged in a handle of the ice cream with no occupy of the space of ice cream body. The cartoon belt music ice cream consists of an ice cream body, a through hole, a music opening, a music body, a push pull rod, a push pull sheet, a handle and a cartoon picture. The utility model overcomes the deficiency that environmental pollution is caused by the wood handle of the prior ice cream. Having the advantages of wood material saving, cost reducing, simple structure and low cost, the utility model thereby is an ideal product for the enterprises producing ice cream to choose and is surely to be welcomed by large consumers.”
The mechanics are illustrated with a drawing, which has an accompanying prose description:
CLAIMS(1) [translated from Chinese]1 A cartoon ice cream with music, including the cake body (1), the through hole (2), music port (3), the music body (4), pull-tab (5), push-pull rod (6), a handle (7) cartoon images (8), characterized in that: Music body (4) and the handle (7) is integral, the music body (4) and the handle (7) within a through hole (2), provided externally with music port ( 3) and leave the music port (3) of the mouth of the through hole (2) of the holes are connected, the music body (4) Tops cake body (1), a handle (7) that has the pull-tab (5), pull-tab ( 5) Push the lower end mounted lever (6) and is integrally fixed to each other, pushing the lever (6) with the lower end of cartoon picture (8).
A different, clearer method of producing music is documented in this video. Skilled drummers drum on the frozen surface of Lake Baikal (thanks to the Granite Geek blog for bringing it to our attention):
One can also produce music from ice data, as described in this paper:
“Research set to music: The climate symphony and other sonifications of ice core, radar, DNA, seismic and solar wind data,” Marty Quinn and Loren David Meeker, International Conference on Auditory Display. 2001. The authors are at BAE Systems and Design Rhythmics Sonification Research Lab and the University of New Hampshire.
Dr. Meeker [pictured here] reports that he also builds mathematical models of customer loyalty, and that he was “Previously a rider on the rodeo circuit”.
BONUS (thanks to investigator Vaughn Tan for bringing this to our attention): Three glacier ice records, played until they melt
BONUS: Video of a man simultaneously making music and ice cream:
BONUS (perhaps unrelated): News headline: “Man with loaded pistol tells musical ice cream truck to leave neighborhood”
BONUS (probably unrelated): Sarah MacLachlan singing “Ice Cream”