Scrapheap Orchestra

I'm Charles Hazlewood. I've been conducting orchestras

all over the world for more than 20 years.

For me, the orchestra is an almost magical gathering of individuals,

all with the same purpose - to give voice to

extraordinary music that can leave us feeling replenished and changed.

Central to this, of course, is the instruments themselves.

Staunchly traditional in design and sound,

they've remained virtually unchanged for certainly the last two centuries.

So, the question is, can those instruments

still make beautiful music,

if we go right back to the drawing board

and made them from radically different materials?

I'm challenging some of the country's top instrument-makers

to create an orchestra for the modern age...

SOUND LIKE A FRENCH HORN

..with one rule.

They can only use scrap.

It looks the perfect size for a double bass.

It'll be like no violin I've ever seen.

By re-building the orchestra, we'll examine how it works,

and discover precisely how each instrument makes its unique sound.

SOUND LIKE A TRUMPET

SOUND LIKE A CLARINET Jury's out a little bit on that.

SOUND LIKE A VIOLIN

I mean, it makes you feel like you're five years old again!

But will our scrapheap orchestra be able to perform

Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture

in front of thousands at the renowned BBC Proms?

I'm imagining myself on the Albert Hall stage.

Frankly, I would want the bowels of the Earth to open

and swallow me up.

'It's an experiment that's never been attempted anywhere before.'

We could be the laughing stock of the whole profession.

On some level, maybe it puts our reputations at risk.

The Proms is not regarded as a rubbish orchestra festival.

If I'm not happy, it's not going to happen.

We dump around 280 million tonnes of waste

in the UK alone each year.

The question is - could any of it be better suited

to making beautiful music than the materials of old?

Shortly, the instrument-makers are going to arrive

and I'll issue them with the big challenge -

can they make a whole orchestra of instruments

entirely from the materials we see around us?

Who knows? And heaven help us.

These men are master craftsmen,

who work for the world's leading orchestras.

They're used to having the finest materials at their disposal

and can spend months, even years, honing a single instrument,

worth thousands of pounds.

'For this project, they have to make 44 different instruments,

'good enough to make a professional sound.'

-Good morning.

-ALL: Good morning.

We have a great opportunity ahead of us. In just 11 weeks,

the stage is ours at the mother of all music festivals -

the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall,

to give a performance of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture,

but in a way that has never been seen or heard before.

The orchestra will play entirely on instruments made by you

from scrap materials.

That's the only rule.

You can only use the kind of objects you find in a place like this -

stuff that has been cast out, disposed of,

or, at the very least, passed on.

THAT is the challenge.

I'm eternally optimistic.

I think anything is possible given enough time

and enough resources, but I've got a really serious concern about time.

Say, for a clarinet, around about 500 hours.

11 weeks is not very long.

I totally hear you.

In an ideal world, you'd have a great many months

to make these instruments, but sorry, guys -

the fact is you just don't.

So I must be very clear with you when I say

I ain't going to walk out on-stage at the Albert Hall

to an orchestra that can only wheeze and moan and burp at me.

I need an orchestra that can make genuinely brilliant music

so the audience will go, "Whoa! How could it be possible

"that this orchestra playing these bits of rubbish

"could sound so good?"

I wish you good luck.

In this project, what we want to do is go back to a kind of ground zero -

to sort of re-experience what craftsmen and women

must have experienced when they were at the very beginnings

of creating, say, the violin.

A big elastic band to tighten the head onto the drum.

A clothes-hanger will make

the most excellent little bow...

-HE LAUGHS

-for very short hands.

This could be the basis of a body for a violin or viola.

If we find another one of those, we're quids in.

We're used to making high-quality instruments,

so to make something out of a piece of junk effectively

will be rather interesting.

I'm looking at this cement mixer for possibly a timpani.

It's not a very good slide, but a slide that sort of works.

I mean, obviously what they're doing at the moment is pretty primitive,

but surely it's the beginnings of trains of thought

so I think the only way is up.

'Over the next few weeks,

'the makers will have to take their instruments through quantum leaps.

'I'm hoping that by going back to basics

'and building instruments afresh,

'we'll build a greater understanding and appreciation of how they work.

'It's going to take all the ingenuity and craft

'the makers possess, especially when you consider

'the piece of music I'm hoping we'll play at the Royal Albert Hall.'

The greatest orchestral showstopper of them all -

Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, written to celebrate Russia's victory

over Napoleon's invading army - a shameless crowd-pleaser,

which showcases all the elements of the orchestra.

Tchaikovsky wrote the overture in 1880,

an era when the orchestra reached a new peak.

The instruments had evolved over hundreds of years, to the point where

they could excel and blend perfectly.

It speaks volumes that the orchestra and its instruments

have barely changed since Tchaikovsky wrote this familiar

and rambunctious pinnacle of orchestral music.

With the instrument-makers onboard, now I need a group of musicians.

And I'm planning to recruit some I know very well.

I've been working with the BBC Concert Orchestra for many years,

but never before have I said to them,

"Actually, one thing you're not allowed on this gig are YOUR instruments."

I could be in for a tough time. We could be the laughing stock of the whole profession.

It puts our reputations at risk.

So, ladies and gentlemen, the last tub-thumbing

and, let's face it, gloriously vulgar bars

of that great confection, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture.

Now, I have a mission - and I hope you'll join me

gladly and enthusiastically in this mission -

which is to perform this piece at the BBC Proms

at the Royal Albert Hall in just 11 weeks' time.

Now, you may immediately say, "Yeah, so what?

"1812, surely no stranger to that

"or any other classical music festival."

To which my answer is, well, yes, it is the 1812,

but not quite as we know it, because what I am going to

ask you to do over the course of the ensuing 11 or so weeks

is to put away your beloved instruments

and in their stead to pick up strange scrap instruments,

made entirely of rubbish - kind of waste materials.

And the biggest challenge I'm well aware lies with you.

Because your instruments are, I guess, to most of you,

like very, very dear friends, almost like lovers,

so the idea of asking you to put away a great friend and effectively get in bed with a stranger

is, I know, quite an ask. So, that's the challenge, ladies and gentlemen.

I'm very hopeful that you will be up for it.

LAUGHTER

Well, I'm assuming because no-one has kind of gone off the deep end

that you're all cautiously up for the challenge. Is that fair?

OK, great. Well, here's to it.

I'm really looking forward to this project

and I look forward with great anticipation and excitement

to finding out what these makers can produce.

I'm always trying out instruments,

thinking I'm going to find the one.

This is going to be the one, it's fantastic.

Well, maybe this is going to be the one?

This scrap instrument might be the one!

We're all in it together, aren't we, really?

-We'll go down as one sinking ship!

-HE LAUGHS

While the orchestra ponders the challenge ahead, our master craftsmen are hard at work,

scouring local scrap yards...

I don't think I've ever been in a place like this before.

A car breakers' yard is not really my usual comfort zone.

..looking for anything that could conceivably

become part of a musical instrument.

We could call that a 36 inch bass drum.

-Oh! And I can nearly lift it off the ground!

-HE LAUGHS

So far, there's not a potential violin bow in sight.

For my oboe and bassoon, this rubbish just won't do.

Just maybe there might be the Stradivari of car bonnets

-sitting there right in front of us.

-RINGING SOUND

Tubular bells.

SOUND LIKE A FLUTE

Human beings have probably been making music

since first stepping out of the cave.

But it's the technology behind the instruments

which has helped turn crude sounds into harmonious music.

Orchestras started taking shape around the early 17th century,

and, as more instruments emerged,

composers began to take advantage of them,

writing more and more sophisticated music.

These instruments divide pretty neatly into four categories.

Strings, woodwind,

brass and percussion.

I've chosen makers who specialise in each of these.

Strings account for more than half the orchestra,

and the largest group within the strings comprises the violins,

the smallest instrument in this orchestral family.

The double bass is the largest and the lowest stringed instrument.

Rarely in the spotlight on its own,

it provides the vital deep foundations

of the orchestra's sound.

Ben Hebbert is an accomplished instrument-maker

and music academic at West Dean College near the south coast.

He's making the scrapheap orchestra's lower strings,

that is three cellos and two double bass.

I think there always has been something really mysterious

about instrument-making.

Every single instrument becomes unique, and there's an awful lot of

opportunity to try to figure out what it is which is

going to make one instrument a little bit closer to that gold standard.

Stringed instruments are most often played with a bow,

which is strung with horse tail hair.

Minute hooks on the hair continually vibrate the string,

producing a long, even tone, but not a very loud one.

It's the sound box, the wooden body of the instrument,

that amplifies the strings' vibrations.

The hollow box must be strong enough not to collapse when strings are tightened across it,

but flexible enough to vibrate,

pushing the sound out across its entire surface.

How is Ben going to find scrap to replicate

what the sound box has excelled at for hundreds of years?

I saw a nice tin bath from on the side of the road.

So, we're going to see if we can find it again.

It looks like the perfect size for a double bass -

your classic zinc washtub...

..complete with its old stopper.

Dragging his find back to the peaceful idyll of West Dean College,

Ben tests the resonating qualities of his new washtub sound box.

BANGING

There's a lot of overtone, so you don't just hear "bang",

but particularly as it reverberates there's higher frequencies

which reverberate for a little longer,

so particularly when I get the real bass of it...

IT REVERBERATES

..it's that reverberation which means as the music is continually playing,

that's going to build up and build up and build up.

What I've found here is a bit of a mast from a sailing dinghy,

so what I'm simply going to do, in the best naval traditions,

is lash this all together.

I think it's got potential.

It should be incredibly strong.

If people can go halfway across the Atlantic in a raft like this,

then we should be able to go halfway through the 1812 Overture.

Lovely deep bass.

'Our first scrapheap rehearsal is two weeks away.

'It'll be small - just a core group of players -

'but we must have at least one of each instrument ready by then.

'Ben's double bass is first out of the blocks.'

Andy's come from the orchestra to test-drive it.

Andrew's also here, one of the bow-makers,

so we'll see what kind of bow concoction he has come up with.

I'll start to get an inkling

as to whether this project has legs or not. So, excited? Yes.

But also, frankly, a bit terrified.

I have absolutely not the faintest idea

what this bass is going to look like.

I've tried to work out whether it's going to be a tea chest and a broom handle

or whether it's going to be little bits of scaffolding.

I haven't a clue.

For the time being, Ben's using real strings on his washtub

and sailing mast double bass.

-HE LAUGHS

-Look at that!

-So, here's the beast.

-That's amazing!

You've got to admit it's rather beautiful?

Um... What, a naive charm?

Um, it's got bits that I recognise...just.

-Here's your bow.

-Of course it is.

It's called "Aqhaireous".

It's a piece of water pipe, hence the name.

Right... Bit scary.

SOUND LIKE A DOUBLE BASS

Bit thick, that neck.

You might want to work on that.

That's going to be one of the big problems for you?

Is it? For me!? Surely not!

I'll just throw an artistic hissy fit and wander off. It'll be a big problem for you!

It's got an incredible amount of bass resonance.

I'd never imagined it would have so much "Phwar!" at the bottom, you know. An old tin tub.

I'm struggling a bit down here as well.

There seems to be an obstruction...

THEY LAUGH

..and it's the rest of your instrument.

Actually, that's a bit of an obstruction as well.

I'm slightly concerned about that.

PLAYS A SCALE

But after a few more minutes playing,

Andy tentatively begins to get on terms with his new instrument.

Yeah. Well, an 1812 with a few more bars rest in it

for logistical repositioning

and we could be away. As far away as possible!

Up here, it's just about manageable with the finger board,

but as we go further down the neck it gets far too wide.

If that was thinned out, that would be lovely.

This is a good example of how their first reaction to it

is going to be, "Argh! I don't quite understand it, it's not performing in the way I expect."

But give it a bit of time and you start to make friends with it and it makes friends with you.

I think he quite liked it.

As work continues across the orchestra,

the instrument-makers are embracing my scrapheap challenge.

At his workshop on the Kent coast, percussion-maker, Paul Jeffries,

is hollowing out a truck wheel for his giant bass drum.

This could well be my favourite instrument so far.

It looks...pretty solid.

I think it might sound quite good.

SOUND LIKE A TROMBONE

Jim Casey from the concert orchestra has been testing

the first of two plumbing pipe and copper vase trombones

by brass-maker, Mick Rath.

-I'm definitely having this one.

-HE LAUGHS

Woodwind specialist, Daniel Bangham, seems to be getting somewhere

with his two bassoons made from a golf club and a shower cubicle.

What I'm hoping is that this will make a really fat sound,

like a professional bassoon.

SOUND LIKE A BASSOON

That's what I wanted! HE LAUGHS

And with his drum still a work in progress,

Paul has finished the first of his 14 instruments -

a triangle made from a digger drill bit

-suspended in the neck of a sink.

-SOUND LIKE A TRIANGLE

The porcelain is providing an acoustic chamber.

Amazing. Absolutely amazing!

SOUND LIKE A TRIANGLE

Absolutely crucial to the orchestra is the rich sound of the violins.

Until the mid-20th century, they were seated on

either side of the conductor to provide a symphonic effect.

Tchaikovsky wrote the 1812 with this set-up in mind.

The overture pushes the instruments through their full range.

Our scrap versions will need to produce a lyrical sweetness...

..and withstand some turbo-charged savagery.

We'll need 12 violins in the scrapheap orchestra,

as well as four violas.

Enter violin-maker and teacher, Rob Cain.

Violin-makers are

fairly eccentric kind of people

and they get really obsessed over all kinds of details

that nobody other than a violin-maker would even notice.

It's a constant pursuit of perfection.

It's one of those few professions

where we're always looking backwards.

We're trying to achieve something

which was at its best 250 years ago.

The pre-eminent violin-maker of that golden age was Antonio Stradivari.

His surviving instruments are prized.

One recently sold for close to £10 million.

This is one of his violins played by the virtuoso, Matthew Trusler.

The sound of a violin depends on its distinctive flat shape,

the wood it's made from and the varnish used to coat it.

Experts have long puzzled over

the secret ingredients of the Strad violin.

A combination of spruce, willow and maple he's believed to have soaked in Venetian lagoon water

then varnished with gum arabic, honey and egg white.

But Rob has an altogether

less lavish plan in mind for his scrap version.

What I'm looking for is soil pipe.

Can a plastic pipe used to carry away human waste

really reproduce the sweet sound the violin has become known for?

It's a long way back to Newark.

Rob teaches at the Newark School of Violin Making in Lincolnshire,

one of only three such institutions in the UK.

Amidst the students learning to craft traditional instruments,

Rob sets about his first attempt at a scrapheap one.

It'll be like no violin I've ever seen,

based on your familiar household soil pipe.

Not been used, so there are no health and safety issues with it.

Rob's made his task all the harder in his determination to follow my instruction to the letter -

using 100% recycled materials and going as far away from

conventional instrument design as possible.

The tailpiece is what holds the strings

at the bottom end to the instrument.

I've got a choice of stainless steel or nickel silver.

All the materials in a violin

are working at their absolute physical limits.

The strings exert 70 pounds of tension,

pushing down on the violin body

and all concentrated at just one point - the bridge.

If any of the materials aren't quite strong enough,

something's going to give.

-STRING SNAPS

-'Tchaikovsky wrote the 1812 for at least 80 musicians

'because he wanted that scale of sound.

'We're limited by time to make our instruments, so ours will be a scaled-down version.

'44 players, in a very special arrangement by Ian Gardiner.

'He's coming with me to see Rob's prototype scrap violin,

'alongside Cynthia Fleming,

'first violinist and leader of the orchestra.'

My scrap orchestra has got to service the demands

of an incredibly passionate and fiery piece

of Russian romantic music

and so much of that boils down to what the violins sound like,

so a lot is hanging on what Rob is able to create for us.

And it certainly looks like no violin I've ever seen.

Rob's finished it off with a CD to support the bridge,

a kitchen spoon for the chin rest

and to try to get the soil pipe body to vibrate as much as possible,

he's cut away parts and wrapped it in a plastic drinks bottle.

That looks extraordinary!

Just get me spoons in the right place, you know. That's all-important.

SOUND LIKE A VIOLIN

Excuse me while I adjust my spoons! THEY LAUGH

Then it's a quick tune-up with nails for pegs.

SOUND LIKE A VIOLIN

It's very difficult to make that sound like anything.

I mean, it makes you feel like you're five years old again!

You know.

You have some challenges there.

It doesn't vibrate in quite the same way.

SHE PLAYS A NOTE

You can hear that.

I am seeing more problems than I was seeing before.

It's one thing to think in abstract about, yeah,

we'll make a whole section of violins out of scrap.

To think of that in the abstract, you think, it must be possible,

what a wonderful idea, by the way.

Maybe this will challenge the way

people think about how violins sound, what makes violins sound?

But now we're down to the detail.

Are these pegs really going to maintain tension

and keep the strings in tune?

Will there be enough sound coming out of the instrument?

I'm quite fearful about that.

There are so many things which have got to be got right

before we've got a viable proposition of an orchestra.

It wasn't the best moment for a meeting with Roger Wright,

the director of the Proms.

He wants assurances that my scrapheap orchestra

WILL sound good enough to play at the Albert Hall.

So, the instruments are proper instruments,

but they're not copies

-and they're made of...

-Well...

-scrap, rubbish?

-Yeah.

Anything which is not conventional.

Yeah.

My concern is obviously,

how will it sound,

how are the players going to respond

and, you know, the Proms is not regarded

as a rubbish orchestra festival.

How confident are you that the instruments WILL sound well?

Well, I'm going to stop at nothing to make sure they do.

We do have an amazing roster

of some of the very best instrument-makers in the country,

so if anyone can achieve miracles with rubbish, they can.

But clearly we've got to put down a marker that...

if it's not going to work, if the instruments aren't going to sound well,

if the Concert Orchestra players are unhappy, we'll just have to pull it

because there's too much at stake, so if I'm not happy,

I'll have to say, "It's not going to happen."

A sobering thought,

especially as the bulk of the instruments are still to be made.

MUSIC: "1812 Overture" by Tchaikovsky

The woodwind section plays a crucial role in the orchestra

by providing melody, harmony, texture and colour.

Despite their name, only some are made of wood -

others metal, bone, plastic or ivory.

But all use vibrating air to create sound,

either by blowing through a reed, like a clarinet,

or against a sharp edge, like the flute.

As in many big orchestral pieces,

the 1812 features solos for all the woodwind instruments,

each one bringing its own distinctive colour and character to the musical narrative.

So, our scrap instruments will really have to perform.

Most wind and other orchestral instruments

are the result of refinements to very old ancestor instruments.

The clarinet, however, is not the result of gradual developments to an ancient instrument.

It was a revolutionary invention in the late 17th century.

CLARINET PLAYS CLASSICAL PIECE

A German instrument-maker, Johann Christoph Denner,

adapted a shepherd's pipe,

using primitive keys to play in the higher, as well as lower register.

The instrument grew in popularity,

in particular in the hands of Mozart,

who adored it for its unique sound.

Andy Wheeldon has to make two clarinets, two flutes

and a piccolo for our woodwind section -

five instruments that would usually take him

the best part of a year to make.

Andy's got less than ten weeks, and he's never made them out of scrap either.

A plastic water pipe.

This should be ideal for the clarinet.

'The water pipe should work perfectly because the clarinet is simply a straight tube,

'unlike other wind instruments whose bodies taper out along their length.'

That ain't ever coming out again, is it?

You'd struggle, I think.

'The finger holes are precisely placed to achieve the clarinet's wide range of notes.'

This is the moment of truth.

HE PLAYS RESONANT NOTES

-That is amazing!

-Sound good?

-Bravo. Absolutely fantastic!

That passes muster.

I think your work is done.

-Well, we haven't...we haven't got...

-I know.

-We need all the keys.

-Yeah, we've got the gap there.

But the basic design, it's going to work, isn't it?

Well, yeah, but that's the easy part.

The keys on the clarinet are designed to cover the finger holes

that are out of the player's reach.

The earliest versions featured simple keys

made out of pivots and felt pads,

but they were often less than reliable.

So, how IS Andy going to overcome the same challenges

that early instrument-makers faced,

to make this complex keywork from scrap?

Hi, there. I was told you've got some cutlery.

On a regular clarinet,

you're looking at 21 individual key pieces

made of a number of other separate components soldered together,

so it's quite a jumble of parts.

Eat your heart out, Uri Geller!

All the keywork has got to work properly, everything within reach,

pads have to seal holes,

they have to move without sticking.

Utilising things that are entirely scrap

I've still not pulled it off yet.

HE CHUCKLES

A further challenge for Andy is the reed,

the heart of the clarinet's sound

and the impulse that its resonating body turns into music.

The reed itself, what it's doing

is opening and closing on the mouthpiece,

and the number of times it does this a second

will depend on the note the player's playing.

So, for a concert pitch A, that's 440 times a second.

HE TOOTS NOTE

Reeds are cut from wild cane,

but I think Andy's rather enjoying finding a less exotic scrap alternative.

It was a chocolate-covered ice cream coated in almonds - lovely.

So, we're going to have a go at making a reed.

See if we can make something that will make a sound.

NOTES ISSUE FALTERINGLY

It's very difficult

SQUEAKY NOTES

It's not having it!

Despite the problems with the reed, Andy's clarinet is ready for a road test.

And who better to do it than Derek Hannigan,

second clarinet with the Concert Orchestra,

watched by me and Ian the arranger.

-Are you ready for this?

-I think so.

-Ah!

-Oh, my goodness!

-Wow.

-There you go.

And the keys are made of...?

Mainly cutlery.

-That's a fork...

-Yeah, yeah.

-..with the tines. Another one there.

And these are spoon handles.

THEY LAUGH

After the failure of the scrap reed, I reluctantly decide that Derek

CAN use his own reed and mouthpiece to test Andy's prototype instrument.

Right, let's see what happens.

HE PLAYS NOTES

Oop.

HE PLAYS NOTES TENTATIVELY

Try and find the fingers.

HE PLAYS A SQUEAKY SCALE

NOTES SQUEAK

That's very resistant, isn't it. Kicking back.

I would feel a little worried

if I had to perform on it tomorrow, or today, even.

1812's got all these fantastic fast runs

and I'm looking at that and I'm thinking...

Well, there aren't keys there to play some of those notes at the moment!

So, the jury's out a little bit on that at the moment

cos it's not working well enough to know whether we can get round that or not yet.

HE PLAYS: "1812 Overture"

I'm never going to live this down, you know!

With most of the instrument-makers now well under way,

Paul Jeffries, our percussion-maker,

is still on the hunt for scrap to make three timpani, or kettle drums.

I've spotted a river buoy...

floating, drifting in the channel on the Medway here.

Percussion ensemble is beginning to look good.

In their slightly more sedate surroundings, our two bow-makers

are taking quite different approaches to my challenge.

Another bow-maker is making half the bows for the orchestra,

Peter Oxley.

We're slightly going in different directions.

We couldn't possibly be competitors.

HE BLOWS A RASPBERRY

The material I'll use for the essential part of the stick is an arrow

so I'm going to now select the best ones

and get cracking with the violin bow.

A specialist skill,

bows are traditionally made from horses' tail hair.

But Andrew Bellis has found a possible alternative,

thrown away by his local party emporium.

As far as I know, unless I was drunk at the time,

I have never used black party wig hair in a bow.

It has become really all-consuming and I'm working day and night!

But we'll see, you know, at the rehearsal

whether this will all pay off, this hard work.

It may be that it's wasted on party wigs

and it makes the most wonderful substitute for bow hair.

Hey presto. One double bass bow with party wig hair

SILENCE

Not going to play.

Oh!

Elsewhere, brass-makers Luke and Heidi Woodhead

have the beginnings of a French horn.

This one's made from old plumbing pipe

and some garden hose.

We'll make it change key, so now the player's going to play,

the air's going to come in here,

and instead of going straight out here,

it's going to be diverted to here, round the loop and back out.

MUSIC: "1812 Overture" by Tchaikovsky

The brass section adds huge power to the orchestra,

alongside colour and drama.

The sound these instruments make

depends on the players' lip tension and air flow.

Brass instruments are just long tubes.

The longer the tube,

the lower the instrument can play.

To get more range, the tube must change length.

And in the case of the trombones, quite literally.

Others, like the French horn, use valves to direct air through different lengths of tube.

And this is also true of the trumpets.

Internationally renowned maker Andy Taylor

has to make three of them from scrap.

His starting point - an old watering can.

The pouring spout will be used

to replace part of the bell section of the trumpet.

And then that bit...

..boom, will go on there.

The bell is crucial to producing the characteristic sound

that a trumpet's known for.

For many years, it was limited in the number of notes it could play, and it was valves,

introduced in the 1800s, which allowed it to cover many more notes

and revolutionised the way it was played.

How will principal trumpeter Kate Moore fare on Andy's scrap version.

-Hi, Andy. How are you, all right?

-Good, thank you.

-Nice to meet you.

-Do you want to see it?

-I do, yeah. Is that it?!

Wow.

-We have a golf club.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Reused plumbing fittings.

-Yeah.

-A piece of hose pipe. Some more plumbing fittings.

-Yeah.

A piece of an watering can. SHE LAUGHS

-And a table lamp base.

-Fantastic!

Well, it looks like a trumpet.

SHE PLAYS A LONG, SHAKY NOTE

SHE REPEATS NOTE

I can't control that.

SHE BLASTS A SHAKY NOTE AND HOLDS IT

I think it's going to be a real challenge to make this work.

I think it's going to be a whole new language of fingerings.

SHE PLAYS: "1812 Overture" by Tchaikovsky

The reason that the intonation is all over the place

-is the physics have been seriously compromised...

-Yeah.

..by having to use what we could find.

These problems of intonation, or tuning, of simply getting the right notes,

will involve Kate finding new fingering patterns, which she'll have to remember.

I'm putting in alternative fingerings where the notes are more in tune.

SHE PLAYS: "1812 Overture" by Tchaikovsky

As professional musicians, obviously we are trained to...

always play to the best of our ability,

and poor intonation really grates on us

and I...you know, I can just feel myself getting a little bit...

eurgh!

SHE BLASTS OUT NOTES

Huh.

-NOTES WAVER

-Uh.

SHE SIGHS DEJECTEDLY

It's just over six weeks until I'm hoping to lead

the scrapheap orchestra onto the Albert Hall stage.

Today is an incredibly important day.

You could say it's the first real crunch day in the project.

I've heard certain of the instruments in prototype form in isolation,

but I haven't heard them all playing together.

And we're not here to make a bunch of solo instruments.

We're here to make an ensemble. Will they work together?

It's, frankly, very exciting, and also hugely terrifying

because this is the moment

when we find out really, genuinely, does the project have legs.

First to arrive - Daniel, with an oboe and bassoons.

Apprehensive, as I'm sure everybody is.

This is the first time we'll get to see whether they'll perform,

so it is very nerve-racking

Ben's finished his bathtub bass,

as well as a cello made from a fuel tank.

I think it's more terrifying

to think of the instruments playing together for the first time, than exciting.

Next, the bow-makers, Andrew and Pete,

with a selection of bows.

I'm trepidatious about their reactions to the bows.

I'm feeling kind of like I've been up all night,

because I have been.

And Andy's completed a second watering can and lampshade trumpet.

The best thing that can happen today

is that Kate could offer to buy it off me.

And the worst-case scenario

is that I sit in the corner and bawl my eyes out!

Lastly and, frankly, quite unimpressively at this point,

Paul arrives with only a triangle and a tambourine

for the percussion section.

That's all I've done.

HE CHUCKLES

-Cool!

-What do you think?

As they wait for the players,

it's the first chance the instrument-makers have had to see each others' work.

It looks more scrappy than yours.

-HE PLUCKS NOTES

-That IS cool.

Now for the musicians.

Seasoned professionals all,

it's the first time many have met their new scrap instruments.

I love it to look at it.

Can't quite work out the fingering just at the moment.

Feels very odd.

This bow actually works remarkably well.

CACOPHONY OF MUSICAL NOTES

This... I'm afraid this is not going to work.

I can, at least, get my hand round the neck of the instrument.

I'd quite like it if it stood up like that,

so I can walk off in disgust and it does actually stand.

Ingenious.

I'm not quite sure whether...

I think we CAN play it, but...

'As Ian lays out the score he's prepared,

'it's time to tune up the scrap.'

-OK, ladies and gentlemen.

-CACOPHONY OF NOTES

Ladies and gentlemen.

MUSIC FADES

Vicky, do you have an A for us?

SHE TOOTS AN "A"

ORCHESTRA RESPONDS IN KIND

'Traditionally, orchestras tune to the oboe,

'because it's instrument least likely to lose pitch.

'The others need constant tuning

'because they're susceptible to the slightest changes in temperature and humidity.'

Can we go in a one-three-four?

'First, I want to put the woodwind through their paces

'and allow the brass and string players to warm up a little.'

THEY PLAY AIRILY AND TUNELESSLY

OK, let's hold. Ileana, what's going on with that instrument?

Um...

A lot of the notes are very good

but because I don't have three of the notes I require in this passage, I can't play it.

'Next, I want to test how the strings sound,

'especially the violins.

'They're absolutely critical to the success of the 1812,

'and, of course, they play pretty much continuously.'

THEY ALL BOW NOTES

'Rob's violins and Ben's cello and bass have got a job on their hands,

'to be heard above a pretty feisty scrap brass section.'

THEY PLAY: "1812 Overture" by Tchaikovsky

STRINGS PLAY SQUEAKILY

BRASS SECTION DROWNS OUT STRINGS

I'm just imagining myself on the Albert Hall stage right now

and, you know, frankly,

I would want the bowels of the earth to open and swallow me up.

When I saw Rob last in Newark, I was under the impression

that...he was then going to go away

and make the instruments much warmer in sound

and have much more projection.

Because at the moment, the players can't even hear them themselves,

so they can't play in tune

'Sound isn't the only issue for the string players.'

Down the muscles around my spine,

I'm getting serious tension issues.

I don't think I can play it again today.

Um... It's that big an issue, I'm afraid.

I've had to crane my neck

and I'm getting ten... Oh.

Sorry! ..tension issues in my...in my spine now.

'And viola player Tim isn't the only one under stress.

I mean, the problem is that the strings sound

is absolutely dreadful, isn't it?

I agree with you.

I feel like we need to back to the drawing board on those instruments.

-They just don't sing at all.

-No.

It's a miserable little thin, nasal...

It's not even a wail. It's more of a whimper.

Yeah. The audience in the hall's hardly going to hear the strings.

I'm convinced by certain elements but I just think, you know,

it's not going to work

if we can't get the string instruments a good deal better,

and, actually, we might have to say, the project doesn't stand up.

I don't know enough about what the other options are

but, you know, they need to be found.

'As I reassemble the makers, all eyes are on Rob Cain,

'our scrapheap violin-maker.'

You know, time's running out,

and that's my biggest worry

in terms of the violins, the viola

and also, Ben, in terms of that cello.

I think of all the instruments we have today,

those are the only ones making a sound which is not acceptable.

At its bleeding heart, there has to be the richest,

fattest, most visceral string sound,

which has got to be able to sing,

it's got to be able to be percussive,

it's got to have tremendous impact and weight.

If we've got a string section which can't deliver that,

we're really in a massive problem.

I'm going to be absolutely on Rob's back and on Ben's back

over the ensuing days and weeks.

'If it doesn't improve, I'll pull the string section.'

I'm not going on stage with that noise.

'I was...

'..pretty desolate after that session.

'I really had hoped for something so much better

'in terms of string sound.

'With the next, and full, orchestra rehearsal in a fortnight,

'and then two weeks after that we're in front of 6,000 people at the Albert Hall,

'I've come to Newark for a crisis meeting with Rob.

'Those soil pipe violins have just gone too far away,

'in materials and sound, from real violins.'

You make beautiful instruments. I know - I've heard them.

And surely, in some way, some part of you must have been thinking,

God, that is a kind of insipid, sort of watery...

slightly tangy... just not a nice sound.

-Were you not thinking that?

-I was disappointed.

I didn't really feel that the... the work we put into the instruments

has been done justice to, really.

The trumpets sounded really good, but it was obvious

they'd used a valve mechanism from an original trumpet

and the easy bit - the mouthpiece and the cone at the end -

were made from scrap.

That's not what I want to do.

I'll leave the project if I'm forced to do that.

The important thing for me

is that I'm totally making an instrument from scrap.

Well, I think that's brilliant

and if you can stick to that objective,

but I've started thinking to myself,

maybe the soil pipe idea was just like a blind alley,

so I'm coming up to ask you, really,

to plead with you, to have a rethink.

I'm not coming here to beat you up.

I totally know A, how much work you've done

and B, the extraordinary levels of skills and acumen

and brilliance you have as a violin-maker.

That's not in question.

These instruments, however, just can't be part of my orchestra.

Mm.

With a shadow still hanging over the violins,

the makers set about adjusting their instruments

in light of the rehearsal...

..and getting on with making the remaining ones needed

for our full 44-piece orchestra.

METAL WIBBLE-WOBBLES

One pretty good cello.

Once we have those points over.

MUSIC: "1812 Overture" by Tchaikovsky

When commissioned to write the 1812,

Tchaikovsky told his patron,

"It's going to be very loud and noisy."

And he was true to his word,

thanks largely to his use of percussion.

Percussion instruments have become a more and more important part of the orchestra.

These days, a percussion section includes an astonishing array

of everything from glockenspiel to anvils.

Back in Tchaikovsky's time, the standard percussion section would include a bass drum,

some timpani, a snare drum, crash cymbals, triangle and tambourine

at the very least.

Percussion maker Paul Jeffries, who, frankly, had little to show for himself at that rehearsal,

is still searching for the right scrap material to make the cymbals.

CYMBALS CRASH

I'm breaking the sound

of the cymbals down into three constituent elements -

the crash,

the sizzle

and the bell sound afterwards.

What I'm looking at today is the crash,

so I'm wanting to crash something together...

..and it's an experiment.

I'm thinking maybe two big sheets of metal, so essentially two car bonnets.

That sounded...

..pretty impressive for a clash cymbal.

Meanwhile Rob seems to have accepted that he took his soil pipe violins

too far away from the traditional violin shape,

important both for the sound

and for the musicians not to find it too uncomfortable to even play.

What I learned the other day at rehearsal is just how far

you can push the players as well to adapt to something really

unconventional and it was a lot less than I thought.

So if we're going to get them to play them

and take them seriously, what we've got to do is do some reshaping.

And try to make the shape a bit more ergonomic for the players.

That's more like the shape I want.

It will feel much more like a violin. That already feels far better.

It's quite a nice shape really this.

Back at Paul's waterfront workshop, there's a semblance at last

of what might just be the first of two scrap cymbals.

These are the clash cymbals.

I was looking for something to suspend the car bonnet on

and in my landlady's garage at home was her old bed.

She will be delighted to see it at the Albert Hall

and it works, it works really well.

This is the beater, the main beater and it will be attached

to these bicycle forks and it will have a handle coming out.

So the idea is that the player will get the handle and go crash.

Having begun to make his violins better shaped for the musicians,

Rob faces a crucial question.

To make the instruments sound better,

should he compromise some of the scrap materials he's using?

I know I can use wood.

The less wood I use the better, as far as I'm concerned.

I can be extremely stubborn when it comes to things like this

but this is the one area where I'm willing to compromise.

Using wood under the bridge,

the point where the strings' vibrations reach the violin body,

will hopefully be more flexible than plastic

and allow the whole instrument to resonate.

Intriguingly, one of the only changes made to the violin,

since Stradivari's time, grew out of demands for more volume

and the ability to be able to play higher pitches

to fill the large concert halls of the late 19th century.

Among the changes included making a bigger sound post,

which you can just see here inside the violin.

It's a small wooden column that locks together the vibrating

front and back of the instrument.

Our scrap violins have never had a sound post.

Perhaps this will help to make the difference.

Although this is a very unconventional one,

normally you use a clothes peg,

it will work and make the instrument sound louder...

..and improve the tone of the instrument.

Hopefully a big enough difference

to keep Charlie Hazlewood happy,

or quiet, or both.

More importantly, I think we will have proved that we can make

a nice sounding instrument out of scrap.

Paul has finished his three timpani or kettle drums.

Generally a skin of animal or plastic,

stretched over a copper bowl,

our scrap versions consist of a river buoy, a cement mixer

and a hot water tank, all topped with old sails.

The principal percussionist of the BBC concert orchestra

is coming today to try for the first time,

some of the instruments that I've made.

I'm just finishing off the snare drum, so I'm quite nervous.

I really hope this works.

Hi, Paul. How are you?

Good, thanks. How are you?

Great, thanks, great. And here we are. Look at this.

Wow!

Thank you. Right, let's have a listen.

Each timp is actually tuned to a musical note

and the shape of the bowl contributes

to the tone quality of the drum.

I love the look.

It's just going to want more resonance and more power

but I have to say I've played worse.

In terms of what we're going to need in the Albert Hall,

we're going to need somehow, a bit more resonance.

So what else have you got for me?

A snare drum.

-Oh, it's a Burco.

-It's a Burco.

I like the fact it says "hot" there. I like that.

Wow. Those first few notes I played were really exciting.

There's so much snare coming off.

The thing I was disappointed with, were the timpani.

Other than the look - they look great.

I was so excited to see them.

It was so disappointing when actually there was a thud,

albeit a nice thud, but a thud with none of the resonance

that we associate with the timps.

Having successfully, I'm hoping, adapted the violins

he's made so far, Rob's taking home a new idea to shape

the plastic soil pipe for the other instruments he still has to make.

So I have a piece of drainage pipe in there on number nine.

My wife's at work, so she won't know anything about this.

Done to a T... Oh, dear.

Right, OK.

With the help of one of his students,

Rob gets to work with his custom-made pipe manipulator.

I think it might be a little bit overcooked.

Aaah! Just a bit too much there.

But if there's one thing I have learnt about Rob,

it's that he doesn't give up.

I feel that that's just about at its limit.

Although it's very, very late in the day to be making fundamental

changes, a flatter profile will get a bigger sound from the instrument.

With the baked pipes seemingly a success,

the remaining nine violins and three violas must be finished

before the full orchestral rehearsal in just a few days' time.

So Rob and his students set up something

of a scrapheap production line.

But two things remain to be proven, will the musicians be able to play

the soil-pipe violins and will the sound that comes out of them be...

well, better than the stuff that normally goes through them?

Even though the flute held up pretty well the first time round,

Andy Wheeldon still has some air leaks to seal, to make it sing.

The pressure's on.

There aren't enough hours, so you have to cut something.

Sleep's the easy one.

I'm just doing some final adjustments because,

although Ileana's been very kind about it,

I just want to get it sorted right for her.

That's why I'm doing this tonight.

What I've done on the key is, I've glued a piece of cork

and what I'm doing is filing it down parallel to the hole and then,

in theory, when I stick the foam on there, it will seal perfectly.

Just two weeks from now, I hope to be walking onto

the Albert Hall stage with my scrapheap orchestra.

Today we discover whether instruments made

from non-traditional material

really can blend to create a harmonious sound.

Are they fit for purpose?

Today is so scary because it's the whole orchestra.

It's all 44 instrumentalists, some of them meeting their instruments

for the very first time.

If we've got 44 people mutinying today saying,

"I can't play that any more," we're stuffed.

Let's just remind ourselves,

we're not trying to create some kind of joke ensemble like,

"Ha ha ha, they played an orchestra of scrap instruments.

"It sounded a bit ridiculous."

This has got to sound very, very good.

So, I'm full of trepidation and nerves.

I'm not someone who gets nervous

but I'm definitely nervous at this point in time because I need to know

that these stringed instruments can work and can work well.

Trained musicians are a bit like thoroughbred racehorses,

they need perfect conditions.

If they don't have perfect conditions

they can't perform properly and do you know what? They won't.

They're not very pretty.

They're going to take some getting used to, I think.

I'm apprehensive about today.

It's been a bit of a rush to get these done.

There are problems with the instruments

and I just hope that the musicians can get round them.

I think there's got to be a point where we do put our foot down

and get stroppy ourselves because,

we've done a good job to get instruments here

which will do the job, even if they're not professional.

Good morning, good morning.

Good morning, good morning.

Today's a very significant and important session.

I'm all too aware that for many of you, this is the first time you've

encountered these very strange, odd looking and feeling instruments.

So, without further ado, let's get on with trying to play through

at least the first section of our potted 1812

and see how we get along.

Good! Is anyone injured?

Maybe I like to take myself to an appalling dark place

because when we then inevitably bounce out the other side

you almost feel like you've been resurrected or reborn or something

and I do think that if you take away some of the stabilizers

that we rely on, in any aspect of creative life,

then people have to kind of become more creative

and maybe there's a renewing aspect to that, you know.

It refreshes people.

1,000% improvement on what I was playing last time.

I could play this as much as is necessary

and no real problems at all.

To play, it's almost a joy.

Great praise indeed!

It's true the strings have come a long way, in look and feel,

but our old problem remains.

Guys, how do you think it's going?

The main issues we have is with sound.

They have no sound basically.

It's volume.

And we can't keep them in tune.

It's quite personal really. There's a lot of myself in there.

It's good.

There's a part in there where the flute takes the melody,

I was almost in tears.

I'm filling up.

There's been quite a lot of tension and frustration

and then hearing it actually coming off and working,

it's a bit special.

The timpani sounded really good.

I think all the drums sounded really good actually.

I was really pleased.

The players turned round to me after the first run through

and just said 1-0 to the percussion. And it kind of summed it up.

Things just started to settle.

People started to kind of get to grips with their instrument.

They started to listen to each other,

so there was definitely a sense of relief,

of release,

people kind of enjoying the ride,

were beguiled, fascinated by the ride.

We got into a vibe.

We got into a zone with it, and by the end I really felt quite excited.

But will the Proms boss Roger Wright share my enthusiasm?

What do you think?

Well, it's not exactly silk purse yet.

Where I was really concerned about whether we could

give it a green light or not, I think now we could give it somewhere

between amber and green, as opposed to the red light it had before.

That's good to hear. We have half a chance of winning now.

I think we have half a chance, maybe even three quarters.

I'm confident we're starting to come together as an orchestra,

but the instruments still have a way to go

before they're performance-fit.

Having initially resisted the use of any traditional materials,

string maker Ben is forced to rethink his fuel-tank cello.

Do you think we can just slot that straight in the back?

Reluctantly, he's adding a reclaimed wooden back

to improve the instrument's sound.

I think we've been incredibly ambitious to go out

of our comfort zone with different materials and with different designs.

We've tried other ways.

The only way is going to be to go back

and become a little more traditional.

The climax of the 1812 features a volley of precisely-timed explosions.

BANG

That made a bang! Problem with that bang is there's a lot of acoustic resonance.

Tchaikovsky scored it for live cannons,

but abandoned his plan cos it couldn't be done safely with the artillery of the day.

Paul's experimenting with a thoroughly modern solution.

HE SINGS THE 1812 MELODY

BALLOON POPS

Balloons, what else?

POPPING

Pretty good.

POPPING

That one's better.

HE SINGS THE MELODY

POPPING

Henry Hoover's the best!

The tuba is the largest instrument in the orchestra,

and is often known as the big boomer, because it plays

mostly the lower notes the other instruments can't play.

why have I chosen the biggest instrument?

Probably because I have the biggest ego,

and I want to satisfy myself that I can do it!

So if we can get rid of this

and take it all apart...?

Not all of it. Just cut the sections out.

It takes 16ft of pipe to make the perfect-sounding tuba.

Brass-maker Andy Taylor is hoping to fashion it

from a ventilation duct dumped by a fast food restaurant.

Testing, hello? Scrapheap Orchestra.

Tonight we're going to play for you the 1812 Overture.

The instrument will stand like about that height, roughly,

when it's completed.

So as long as we've got a reasonably

average height tuba player, he should be able to hide

from the bananas and eggs being thrown at him.

Determined to fire up the Proms audience,

Paul's making one last-ditch cannon attempt.

This is the activator.

This is the exhaust off a double decker bus.

Inside we have a hole punch,

which is going to

flutter down through the Albert Hall.

This time the tyre tube is inside an old gas cylinder.

PUNY BANG AND HISS

It's failed. No-one likes to fail.

I'm not going to cry. Yet.

With just a few days left until our performance,

it's the last chance for the makers to perfect their instruments,

to improve the colour and give character of sound.

I really can't get my head around these valves.

SHE PLAYS A SCALE

-Have we got a B flat key?

-Yes.

-That one?

-Yes.

Oh it's the spoon. Brilliant. Gosh.

Those musicians lucky enough to have the finished item

are getting to know them better in the comfort of their own homes.

HE PLAYS AN OCTAVE

HE PLAYS A MELODIC RUN

SQUEALING, HIGH NOTE

'You're basically concentrating all the time, 100 per cent.'

You can't relax playing an instrument like this.

It's full-on, basically.

SHE PLAYS SOME NOTES

PLAYS A MELODY

It's the subtleties that make it magical.

I fear that the subtleties from the scrapheap instruments

are not that possible.

I'd be very surprised if we hear many magical moments.

SHE PLAYS A FAST MELODY

You know, I'm lucky.

I have an instrument that's playing all its notes,

and even though the sound is not the most ringing,

beautiful sound,

and I'm having to work quite hard, I think I'm lucky.

It's not that dissimilar to what I play,

and I'm getting used to it fairly quickly.

I can play 3 strings at once, which I'm not supposed to be able to do.

HE PLAYS A MELODIC RUN

I can do the movements, but the sound that comes out

is quite a long way from anything.

Any musician is going to be creased with laughter.

PLAYS HIGH NOTES

We couldn't be in a bigger space to fill with these little instruments

and there's fewer of us than normal,

so I think I'm still a little bit nervous about that.

From a distance, I'm not sure what it's going to sound like,

quite honestly.

We hope our customers go away with at least a smile on their faces.

The big day has arrived. Crunch time.

In a few hours, almost 6,000 people will pile into the Albert Hall

for a performance unlike any they've seen before.

I'm just improving the tuning.

Last-minute repairs are essential.

-Last-minute improvements.

-Improvements, thank you.

I think the Scrapheap Orchestra gives us the opportunity to just

think again about how sound is made, why it's made and how it works.

The audience will see these motley instruments making their way

onto the stage and they'll think, "What on Earth is this,

"and surely it will sound rubbish?"

It's going to pack a punch.

I mean, people will go, "What is that?!"

Finally the moment has come where we're going to see how it's really

going to work, how it's going to sound in this magnificent hall.

this is the first time I've stood on the stage at the Albert Hall.

Wonderful, isn't it? I've sat up in the seats a few times.

It could just be that there'll be some traumas during the performance and we'll be running on gaffer tape.

At this particular stage, I've got to feel confident about it

because we've said yes to doing it now,

and if I weren't confident we'd be in trouble.

But as we've discovered over the past 11 weeks,

where scrap instruments are concerned, drama is never far away.

This one involves Paul's bass drum beaters.

Paul, can I have a chat to you?

We have our first hitch of today.

I mean, I thought these sounded great

but the Proms have a problem with this.

It's a family prom, and they've just got these visions

of a teddy bear at the end of a stick being whacked down really hard

in front of the kids, and the Proms really aren't happy about this.

You are having a laugh.

No, I'm not having a laugh. We can't do this, I'm afraid.

We're going to have to change this.

-Because children don't throw teddy bears?

-Well, this is what they're saying.

Can these be adjusted so that they don't look like teddy bears?

Because that, to me, looks like a bass drum beater.

Backstage, Paul's not the only instrument-maker in a lather.

OK, we've got a big problem with the double bass.

We've got to keep the tuning mechanism wet

because when it's wet the wood swells up and that holds the pegs in tune.

This isn't something we do with an ordinary instrument,

but there's a first time for everything.

So, Teddy-bear-gate.

The solution that THEY have suggested is mutilating the teddy bears.

Off with your legs!

Cutting up the bear is making ME sad,

never mind upsetting little children.

Off with his ears.

I think we can get away with that.

As the audience starts to file in,

it's the last chance for the musicians to make sure they,

and their instruments, are match fit.

I was just wondering if you could take an inch off all the way round.

It might make it ring better on the high notes.

-Am I being too fussy?

-No, no. Our aim is always to please.

I'll come back in a minute.

He's very demanding. He's actually quite a particular customer.

-I heard that!

-But when you play to such a high level as him...

Did you hear that?

FLUTE PLAYS PERFECTLY

Brilliant. Well done, mate.

So you can't make any more modifications now?

It's a bit late, isn't it?

It suddenly went much higher than it should

and it made this sort of whimpering noise.

Daniel's going to fix it for me.

How's it feeling?

-Well, it's working.

-It's working.

-That's a fantastic relief.

But with minutes to go before the auditorium doors open,

Paul's got yet another problem - this time with his cannons,

now powered by fire extinguishers.

I'm pressing it...and, as you can see,

there's nothing coming out. The cannon has run out of fuel,

so I'll have to change the extinguisher inside.

-So that's the size of the dead one?

-That's what we need.

-OK. No problem.

Jackie, it's a standard CO2.

There's about five minutes now.

Here it is.

I think we need to just have a little check. Put that line down.

Great. Done. Fixed. Mission accomplished.

-<

-Ladies and gentlemen, we're about to open the house, to let you know.

HE SNORTS

Eleven weeks ago, I challenged

some of the country's top instrument makers

to build an orchestra for the modern age entirely out of scrap.

At times, I wondered if we could pull it off.

But these master craftsmen have more than risen to the occasion.

Now it's down to me to lead the musicians through

that great showstopper,

Tchaikovsky's ode to victory, The 1812.

'Conducting is about an insuperable bond of trust.

'Somehow I'm able to play this amazing thing called an orchestra.

'That's my instrument.

'I've got to walk out here believing in the music

'and believing in the players' ability to find that world.

'I have to trust the sound will be there.'

This is an experiment that's never been attempted anywhere before,

let alone in one of the world's greatest concert halls.

Well, here we are, on stage at The Royal Albert Hall,

at the BBC Proms no less,

with an entire orchestra of instruments

made entirely from scraps.

Here it is on stage and it's about to make, I hope, beautiful poetry.

Right! Let me talk you through some of the materials

that have been garnered to musical use.

The violin and viola section,

Cynthia's violin, for instance, is made out of toilet waste pipe,

ladies and gentlemen. It has been cleaned.

LAUGHTER

And the bow, that bow, started out life as an arrow.

Moving on to the brass. Noteworthy, perhaps, the trombones.

A lot of plumbing material involved in the trombones,

you're perhaps not surprised to hear that.

APPLAUSE

Look at that tuba, ladies and gentlemen!

CHEERS

You'll no doubt be happy to know that that's made almost entirely

from ventilation duct from a local burger joint.

So now to the resourcefulness part.

That falls to the extraordinary band of instrument makers

we've had the privilege to work with on the project.

I salute them for their extraordinary resourcefulness.