I'm gonna send my kids to this school...

A secondary school east of Melbourne will today aim to break a world record - by playing 400 wobble boards.

Students from the Warragul Regional College will take part in the "Great Wobble Off", which they hope will earn them an entry in the Guinness Book of Records.

The previous record stands at 230 wobble boards.

Sandy Ward from the school's art department says the students are feeling confident..

"They're really starting to get excited now. They started out a bit slowly but now that they're actually seeing that yeah, there definitely are 400 wobble boards, and the Guinness Book of Records has accepted our attempt, it seems real.

"At first I think they thought, 'What a crazy idea'."

Each board has been painted with Amnesty International themes.

I thought it was a balance board (basically a skate deck stuck on a barrell), but turns out it's a percussion instrument made out of whatever's handy, although masonite seems to be the material of choice....

The wobble board is an instrument popularized by the Australian musician and artist Rolf Harris and featured in his most well-known song "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport". A wobble board, like some other musical instruments, can be ornately designed as its large surface area can act as a canvas without detracting from its musical capability.

Wobble boards are not commercially made, and most are made by the player. Almost any large, rigid but flexible sheet of material can be used as an impromptu wobble board, although some materials are markedly better than others. Rolf's instrument was originally made from a type of wood composite known as hardboard (Masonite in the USA). According to an interview he gave to Tony Barrell for The Sunday Times Magazine in 2001, Rolf discovered the musical properties of hardboard by chance, when he was about to paint a portrait of the conjurer Robert Harbin in 1959. Before his subject arrived, Rolf prepared the background, covering a large piece of hardboard with Prussian-blue oil paint mixed with turpentine. But the surface refused to dry. "It was all sticky and nasty. He was due to arrive in about half an hour." In desperation, he propped the board over a paraffin heater. When he touched it later, it was so hot it burned his finger. "So I propped it between the palms of my hands and shook it to cool it down. And... I thought, 'What a marvellous sound.'"

The instrument is played by holding the board lengthwise, hands at the sides and flicking the board outward, making the characteristic "whoop-whoop" noise

Awww man, if only he had died instead.

All you ever wanted to know.....

http://www.wowest.com.au/home.htm

Legitimate music?

You decide.......



http://youtube.com/watch?v=I1ON42WberY

At minimum, he has the sing ability of a Lou Reed.