As is known, I’ve been interested in finding a maker of synthetic, clay,
or porcelain “gemshorns,” as real ones are too expensive. I ran across
what might be a clue, in the quest. This picture is from the Aketa site.
They appear to be playing some sort of colored gemshorns.
Well then, here are instructions to make your own. Good luck, and let us know how you get on…
web.onetel.net.uk/~booksearch/walpurgis/gemshorn.htm
Trisha
Thanks. Now I need to catch a chamois, and convince him to let me saw off his horn.
Only the best for Walden… 
I thought that Oklahoma was cattle country and cattle like longhorns and twisty longhorns have, well, horns…so wouldn’t one of those do?
We get ram horns back when our beasts go to the butcher for shepherds’ crooks. And I know of people in the US who use their ram horns for shofars.
Trisha
I have a book at home about making musical instruments. Sadly, the gemshorn is not covered in this book, but each section has a gallery of other makers’ instruments. In one picture, the author shows “Unicorm Gemshorns” made from injection-molded plastic. I have not been sucessful in finding such online. But it was kind of neat to see.
Do keep us posted on what you come up with.
-Patrick
Walden
Here is a simple site on making a Gemshorm From Marc Carlson at the U of Tulsa.
http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carlson/horn/hgems.html
A Gemshorn isn’t any different to make than any Ocarina so any hollow horn or vessel can be used. Search for “Budrio Ocarina” making and “Puny Tune” tube ocarina types too. Gemshorns are tuned by waxing up an extra tonehole, by using a “tuning ring” that adjusts the opening of an extra hole, or by movement of the large fipple plug(in-out). If you use a real horn, you can tune the “basic” scale by pouring wax into it untill the “pedal tone” is reached.
Here is a series of photos from my friend Roberto Velazquez on how to make Ocarinas from molds. You can use “Air-dry” polymer porcelain or baked polyclay to form the “horn”
http://www.geocities.com/gsxochipilli/mixtec/mixtec.html
(puny tune)
http://www.bmumford.com/craft/puny/
(Source for horn,$2 bucks each,$5 bucks sanded)
http://www.tandyleather.com/
There is a wonderfully eccentric company called American Science Surplus that has a product line that looks like a mad scientist’s garage sale. They once had a product that was a synthetic horn made of plastic. They sold as something like a “unicow” horn. I checked their website
but didn’t see it listed. You may want to give them a call to see if they still have some. The price was exceedingly cheap but it should’ve worked well for a gemshorn. I almost ordered a few when I saw them last just for this purpose.
I’ve ordered some different odd tubing and small electrical parts and been very happy with them. They are definitley a “handy man” type store. Instead of selling a small motor, micro switches and speaker they will sell you the electrical innards of a tickle me Elmo ripoff for 50 cents and you can take it all apart and salvage what you need.
cool stuff for the incurably wierd.
Mark V.
By the way the motorized eliptical wieghted cam unit combined with the switch and battery box make an excellent boobytrap for a co-worker’s metal desk drawer. That small motor that makes the doll gently vibrate will bounce around like mad outside the doll.
Not that I would do such a thing
yet…
I am ecstatic. Well, I don’t get ecstatic, but if I did, I might would be. Susato has introduced an ABS gemshorn! http://www.susato.com/susatogemshorns.htm
Now to save up $34.95…
Of course, if you get it, all the other gemshornists (gemshorners?) will make fun of you and say your gemshorn sounds like a recorder, even if the Susato is the gemshorn of choice in gemshorn sessions, wherever those might be held.
What are the fingerings for those it looks like it would be similar to a recorder but no pinkies holes.
Yeah, the fingering is modeled after rec***er.