Xaphoon

The xaphoon (/zæˈfuːn/ zaf-OON) is a chromatic keyless single-reed woodwind instrument invented in 1972, and a registered trademark of its inventor, Brian Lee Wittman.

The first xaphoon, made out of bamboo in 1972, was a spontaneous effort by Brian Wittman, a Hawaiian saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist, to create an instrument for a young child who liked the sound of the saxophone.

After failing to get a satisfactory sound out of an improvised bamboo flute, Wittman cut a mouthpiece opening and attached a tenor sax reed to it.

[4] Due to its short length and large finger-hole size, the pitch of individual notes can be raised and lowered easily, making the xaphoon equally well-suited to play Turkish, Middle Eastern, and other musical scales outside the European tradition.

[5] Due to its popularity, it became impossible to fulfill all orders manually using bamboo,[6] and thus in the spring of 2000, a molded ABS version of the xaphoon following Wittman's patented design was introduced.

A B♭ Xaphoon from Maui
Xaphoon de Catalunya
Xaphoon de Catalunya (closeup)