From PVC Pipe to RimbaTubes | Snubby J (aka Kent Jenkins) | TEDxOaksChristianSchool

[Applause] hello everyone my name is Kent Jenkins but I do go by snubby J on YouTube and today I'm here to share with you unique homemade instruments as well as my story so I grew up in Portland Oregon I was a very weird kid and when I was growing up I was trying to have a lot of things when I was five years old I started playing piano when I was eight years old I started dancing and by the time I was 12 I started picking up filmmaking making little Lego innovations with my family camera I by freshman year of high school though I was doing all these things I had no idea what I wanted to do probably most like everyone else in high school and I realized though when I saw this unique show I had a calling I saw this group called the Blue Man Group in Las Vegas and I when I saw the show I just my mind was blown I the there there's kind of a comedy theater music rock concert dance party all fused into one kind of a show and I was really excited because they have this part of their show where they play this PVC pipe instruments and the way they play it was very Blue Man style but I was really intrigued by this one part of their show that was a tribute to all the rock songs that came before them there's like Lady Gaga Madonna Ozzy Osbourne and I just really loved how you can hear all these recognizable music on such a unique instrument and so I went home with my dad I was like that I really really wanna build this instrument there my parents are very supportive but it's that thing of like you know parents they have just a face he'll get over it kind of thing but I I was really persistent I researched online I got some ideas of what I wanted to do and eventually I was able to convince my dad and we built my own PVC instruments and so actually that there's a picture of my first PVC engine this is the second one I built and essentially what we did though was we just went to Home Depot bought out over 150 feet of ABS plumbing pipe and just went to town on it there are ways to calculate the right length but it ultimately comes down to how it sounds so I had a little electronic chromatic tuner and what I would do is that I'm going to tap the pipe and see where it was on the spectrum and it was a little flat what would we do is cut off a little bit until it was just right and we would cut off like a thousand of the tiniest little slivers to get it to the price not quite like a guitar right or you can easily just tuning peg that way you really have to go one pipe at that time to make sure that they all sound the right note and yeah there it's based on tiptoe you know the longer the pipe the lower the note yeah and then the higher the pipe the shorter the the short in fact the higher the down and so the combination of all these notes allow me to have a full spectrum and on this instrument is where I took it a step further than the Blue Man Group I sit up like a cat so I got all the white cheese and all the black keys and the combination of all these notes allow me to take songs I grew up playing on the piano and put it right onto this [Music] so now rewind oh yeah and so these are the paddles as well was as part of the kind of experimentation with this instrument I started out originally with these plastic painters and gardening and epad cushions and then eventually over time and it is evolved to these foam and corrugated plastic with two rods the hand with more foam and tape but it's it's ideas it's a nice sturdy kind of like a drumstick for me but you get a good sound out of it because the foam is pushing the air through the pipes so now rewind to ten years ago this is when I was in high school and I have first just built by HP I was telling to all my friends I bet this cool instrument I don't know I like I don't know what I'm really wanting to do with it yet but my friends were like okay that's interesting weird you know they they know I didn't use it they do my dance but they didn't really know what I was trying to do this and so what I did was actually I decided to go full out I went to my high school's talent show and I performed bald and blue as a blue man and basically played a whole medley of songs for my entire school and they went nuts for it it was the kind of thing where my weirdness was kind of getting accepted within my community for the first time just like this is fullest extent and I got invited to play a you know other concerts around town more school events and this is boosting my confidence and that's when I first clicked me that I really want to become a blue man like that I was like this this would be my dream right like doing the music doing the theater like it was everything that I'd love to do all-in-one and so by the time of the talent show I actually started uploading YouTube videos as well and that video you know put it up there and it kind of caught on with the Blue Man fan community as well as my own community up in Oregon and I ended up actually getting an email from a stage manager from the Blue Man Group in New York City saying hey we all love your video and we think you guys just keep at it you could probably audition for us one day like yeah thank you like that made the world to me like the my heroes were acknowledging my existence and it was like a possibility that my dream could come true so come highschool graduation I learned that they have this open call in Chicago to audition to be a blue man and so my mom I flew out there and I did the whole like charming audition I did the acting and I was told no and then really killed me I was like I'm just really really passionate about this and this is my dream job and it just it wasn't the right fit and I figured okay that's okay I just need to get more life experience that's what they told me so I went to college I went to Loyola Marymount University and for that actually built this ring but huge instruments and that's where I difficult into my garage with my dad and we figured have the old set at home and then this one down in Los Angeles and I went to school and ended up you know starting to play around my stool and I was playing for a dorm room talent show and I took that video and uploaded it to YouTube just like any other video of mine and for some reason this video was super viral within a week it got over a million views and then now it's got almost 10 million views and just unfathomable and that also started to boost my confidence because then people all over the world we're saying wow like you've got this great talent you'd be a great blue man all these things I'm like yeah that's what I want to do and so I at the end of my freshman year they had an open call in Los Angeles so I went to that audition did the whole thing again and was told no yet again and I was a little heartbroken but at this point I was starting to find my community a school I was starting to get appreciated from what I'd love to do so I continued following these other dreams of my nose you know musical directing I was creating my own theater I was I got to study abroad all these experiences were starting to like multiply on themselves that by my senior year I was really getting involved on YouTube and started uploading more videos that I started to experiment with like special effects rank cloned myself like five times and played at Daft Punk medley and I just started collaborating with more people and starting to find my own voice therefore but by the end of my senior year I was still intrigued by this idea of being apart of looming and so I reached out again saying hey I see your you know have an open politicians in Los Angeles and so I literally literally my graduation we and I was like doing my job getting ready for graduation finals and like I pulled some strings with my professors and I got to go audition for bloom and get it this time they invited me back to the callback and then after that they were like we need you to go to New York and be just learn opportunity to do it in front of the entire board of directors and so they put me on a plane to put me up in hotel I got be in New York for two days training in the training center try out a routine get into a vault and blow the official makeup and perform in front of basically my heroes yeah it was pretty cool but in here was third time's the charm and I would still know and I was just really I was crushed but also at this point I was starting to find my own voice I was feeling like this is what I want to do and it's in my own way that like I almost don't meet the Blue Man Group I was kind of fighting my own my own path and from this because over the next two years so now I've done all these crazy things I got to perform in Germany on das super-talent I was performing it with some friends that I met at the Third Street Promenade while street performing I've gotten you know uploading more YouTube videos but mainly just starting to treat my own theatre pick my own music and feeling really inspired by just the community around me love me and respected me for what I was once to do and I even today I still have this dream of like becoming a blue man but it's just it's time I'm starting to find my own thing and what's cool too is that I've got now fans all over the world who've gone off to build their own versions of the rim Batu's there's you can tell because it's like set up the same way with an aim to an e for both all those all those instruments and this is how I even got to from abroad I was like I just called up a friend as a cake can every weekend and I'm just I'm so grateful for that community that's come about because again is kind of helping me find my own passions my own way of Bennett and from only committing fully to this idea than becoming a blue man and soft meat grown and it's still to this day even if I have like I always say like oh you know I've moved on from Blue Man Group this is not what I need to do anymore but even this past summer I reached out again to say the cast is back I was like hey can I mention again and I was no just over you know this is like a Celtic soon we decided recently and we after all these auditions we don't think it's the right fit and so it's like if I were to I asked my 14 year olds like tell my 14 year enough 14 year old self something is that you are going to fail but it's okay like just by committing fully you're gonna learn so much grow so much and find people that love you and support you for what you really love to do and for me I will still always have this dream of becoming a blue man but that that rejection will constantly help me drive to go further as I can and really become the performer and artists that I am today and by being your own weird stuff you'll find your own calling that way so thank you and I want to float out today with on a little song I don't know if I have time for it okay good cool thank you hi I'm a playing an original song of mine first it's just done I give you a sample of how this instrument sounds it starts up appearances pipe it gets really really rockin buddy [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 1,601,377

Rating: 4.5648103 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Entertainment, Innovation, Music (performance), Music (topic), Theater

Id: tzAmDBQPQ2o

Length: 14min 21sec (861 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 15 2017