Toolbox Classics

So put on your safety goggles, light the acetylene torch, sit back and enjoy your favorite classical music skillfully crafted on hand and power tools.

There are a total of 14 lovingly parodied classical selections on the CD. Each is played with great expertise, both rhythmically and tunefully, by a trained composer who obviously knows these pieces. The difference is that the musical instruments are items found in a commercial machine shop, around a cabinetmaker's workspace, or in a better-than-average home workshop. They include a lowly broom, which, of course, enhances Dukas' "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." The liner notes furnish a handsome photograph of Paul Dukas wearing Mickey Mouse ears, and the explanatory text on each piece is almost as wildly funny as the music.

The tonal range of the music Woody Phillips can get from power tools, especially drills and dremels, is simply amazing. He uses several sizes of power drills in "Ride of the Valkyries," in the hysterically funny 1st movement of Beethoven's Fifth, and, to obtain that busy-bee sound, in "The Flight of the Bumblebee."

One of the cleverest of all the parodies is the first one, the dawn theme from "Thus Spake Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss, made famous in the movie 2001, which uses a large drill press motor, table saw, hand saw, 50 gallon drum, pipes, and vacuum cleaner. The results are not only amazingly musical, they hazarded my recent knee replacements when I came close to falling out of my chair, I was laughing so hard. (The large drill press motor provides a growling bass that Schnittke would have latched on to for his "Faust Cantata" tango.) Another 2001 theme, Johann Strauss' "Beautiful Blue Danube," brings the album to a rousing close with a workshop orchestra of truly Mahlerian proportions -- musical saw, small & large drill press motors, 2 by 4s, pipes, 50 gallon drum, jointer, vacuum cleaner, anvil, bottles (blown on), framing square, hammer, hand plane, file, table saw, ratchet, pneumatic nailer, power mitre box, antique hand drill and hand saw. A "power" mitre box? I have a mitre box, but how would you power one up?

Anyway, if you want a treat, I recommend TOOLBOX CLASSICS. While listening you might want to pop HARDWARE WARS into your home video with the sound turned off, but don't eat popcorn; you'll probably swallow it the wrong way!


Great gift for a tool-loving, music-liking kind of person!   November 30, 1998
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

This CD is a compilation of familiar classical pieces and is really fun to listen to! You will enjoy trying to identify the tools used. Both my dad and dad-in-law like classical music and are tool-types. This will be a great gift. (I already got one for my husband - that's how I've heard it.) I'm sure the inspiration was Home Improvement's theme song (or maybe this music inspired the show?). I'm not sure that the music is played note-by-note as it was composed and the pitch isn't perfect anyway, but you can recognize the pieces! It's a great gift!