On the night of Hallowe’en (or thereabouts), in the year 2020, the world was changed forever with the release of the pioneering audio-visual masterpiece that is ‘Mongolian Death Worm: A Puppet Show Musical’. Humanity looked on in amazement, delight and mild confusion as it followed the daring exploits of Professor-Roy-Chapman-Andrews-But-You-Can-Call-Me-Roy-Chapman-Andrews, and his adventures in the Gobi Desert.

After having watched the video, viewers were left with many questions. The second (after simply “Why?”) was “How did you produce the iconic squeaky-squawky voice of the Witch Doctor?” The long answer to that question is: The rest of this blog post. The short answer: With a swazzle.
 

Anyone who has ever been to a half-way authentic Punch & Judy show will have heard a swazzle in action. In fact, our decision to use one in the musical was one of several homages to that traditional seaside entertainment. Back in the olden days, details of the swazzle were a closely-guarded secret among Punch & Judy performers, and it was known to the public as only ‘that fing wot they use to make Punch’s voice like’. Nowadays, thanks to the internet and an all-pervading sense of disillusionment, the secrets of the swazzle are freely available to all, and therefore I trust my next paragraph will not prove overly controversial.

A swazzle is a type of reed, small enough for a performer to hold between the middle of their tongue and the roof of their mouth. By forcing air through it they can produce a high-pitched squawk, and by also forming consonants with the rest of their mouth they can generate some vague semblance of an almost human voice.

In terms of construction, this device is made of two concave (or convex, depending on your point of view) metal plates, with a thin piece of fabric or ribbon – normally some kind of cotton tape – running between them. It is this ribbon that vibrates and produces the sound. The rest of the tape is wrapped around the plates, sealing them, and to finish it off the whole gubbins is secured by being tightly bound with thread. And if all those words weren’t enough, I’ll even draw it for you:
 

It is an age-old adage that, in this world, there are only three ways to obtain a swazzle.
 

• Number one: You can buy it. A quick look online shows me that there’s someone selling hand-made swazzles on eBay for £15 each. Sadly though, I’m not made of money and would prefer to spend that £15 on fashion accessories.
• Number two: You can steal it. This is really quite naughty and not to be encouraged. And more importantly, I don’t know anybody who owns a swazzle so wouldn’t know from whom to steal.
• Number three: You can make it. This is what I chose to do, and whilst it proved quite difficult it was nonetheless cheap, didn’t depend on morally questionable behaviour, and was also in keeping with the long tradition of swazzlers that have gone before. For, just as constructing his own lightsaber is an essential part of any Jedi’s training, learning to make a swazzle is an important rite of passage for any aspiring Punch. And there is another advantage to making your own swazzle, in that you are able to construct it to more precisely conform to the contours of your own individual oral cavity, which is essential if it is to function at its best.

The most laborious part of constructing my own swazzle was making the metal plates. I had a quick look around the house for suitable material, and soon discovered an old saucepan in the utility room which looked ideal (it’s amazing what you find in there). I borrowed a hacksaw from the production’s official Bestest Boy, Dick Von Trekkington, and set to work.

Two things I learnt rapidly are that stainless steel is extremely hard work to saw through, and it also makes one almighty racket. I attempted to listen to the first night of the BBC Proms while working, but soon felt very guilty for drowning out what I’m sure was a sublime rendition of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the sound of me hacksawing through an old pan. Eventually, though, I got there, and with a little help from some sandpaper and pliers was able to round off the corners, smooth the edges, and bend both plates so that they were a nice snug fit in the roof of my mouth.

Cutting a strip of fabric to go between the plates was not in itself a chore. The real challenge here was finding a fabric that would make a suitable noise when blown through. According to my research, herringbone cotton tape is commonly used for this purpose, but none of the cotton tapes I tried were any use at all. I experimented with various things, including old bits of pillowcase and even sellotape, but the one that gave me the most success was actually a strip cut from a standard blue and white multi-purpose cloth. I’m not saying this was a great solution, and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to any budding swazzlers out there, but for me this was the fabric that gave the least abysmal results.

Interestingly, there must have been something charmed about that particular strip of fabric. Later on I tried replacing it with identical strips cut from the same dishcloth, but try as I might I couldn’t get any of them to work. In the end I just had to put the original back on, thoroughly perplexed wondering what it had that the others did not.

To finish off the swazzle, instead of wrapping it tightly with thread like the old-school squares do, I went for the much trendier option of using a length of string. As well as being cooler, string was much less permanent and easier to unwrap if I wanted to adjust or repair the instrument.
 

Using a swazzle brings with it many challenges, both practical (“WHY WON’T IT MAKE A SOUND!”) and emotional (“WHY OH WHY DID I EVER AGREE TO DO THIS!”). I spent many weeks getting to grips with the thing before attempting to record any of the Witch Doctor’s dialogue, and even then I still consider myself very much a novice. In the run-up to the recording, my training regime was so intense that I would often practise for up to 15 minutes a day!

Breath Control
15 minutes a day may not sound like much, but this brings me on to the first of the swazzler’s many tribulations: it really is quite an exhausting thing to use. To initiate a sound requires a significant quantity of air, ejected very forcefully through the instrument. It is difficult to produce anything more than a short sentence without pausing for breath at least once, and it’s often best to speak quite slowly with a small breath between each word. This constant huffing and puffing soon takes its toll, and after about 15 minutes (often less) you start to feel a tingling sensation behind the nose and a light-headedness that tells you it might just be time to take a break. Perhaps with some adjustment to my swazzle it would be possible to make it more efficient and lessen this problem, but in the meantime it reminds me of my early breathless attempts to play the flute.

Swallowing
With such a small device positioned towards the back of the mouth, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that swallowing is a significant risk. This is something I was keen to avoid for any number of reasons, and so at first I tied a long piece of string to the swazzle which would dangle out of my mouth while practising, ready to pull the thing forward should it work its way too far towards my gullet. After a while, though, I felt confident enough to dispense with this measure. Perhaps all that time spent over the years manipulating bassoon reeds round my mouth (not to mention fruit pastilles) had paid off in superior tongue dexterity. At any rate, I eventually decided to forego the string of safety, helped along by an amusing yet quite revolting observation from our Bestest Boy, which I shall choose not to repeat.

Enunciation
Managing to get a sound out of the swazzle is, of course, only the first step. The major difficulty is in trying to produce anything vaguely resembling human speech. Throughout the process I became acutely conscious of how different vocal sounds are produced, and acutely frustrated at the impossibility of exactly replicating them through a reed held in the mouth. Take, for example, the ‘N’ sound. “Nnnnn…” Say it now – go on, I dare you, make everyone think you’re a weirdo. “Nnnnn…” When you make that sound, precisely how much air passes through your mouth (where the swazzle would reside)? As far as I can tell, none. What actually happens is you use a tiny quantity of air to vibrate your vocal cords, and the sound resonates through your throat, mouth and nose as a kind of hum, with any actual air passing out of your nose. To reproduce that using a swazzle in the mouth instead of vocal cords in the throat is doomed to failure. The same is true of “Mmmmm…” – the mouth is completely closed and no air passes through it. And if no air passes through the mouth, what use is a swazzle? These are the kind of questions that keep peculiar people like me awake at night.

Pitching
Another issue that arises from using a swazzle as an artificial voice box is one of pitching. Initially we had hoped that the Witch Doctor would have some singing ability, and her big showpiece ‘Every Hero Needs A Villain’ was to be pioneering as the first musical theatre song to be performed using a swazzle. Sadly this proved unfeasible, on account of the limited pitch range of a swazzle. It is possible to achieve some pitch variation by varying the speed air is blown through it, but not enough to produce any kind of melody. And let’s face it, even if I could get different notes out of it, the aforementioned issues of diction and breath control would have scuppered any singing efforts anyway. I’m reluctant to say it’s impossible to sing through a swazzle, but, well, basically… yes, it’s impossible.

Spitting
Before I move on to discussing the joys of swazzle maintenance, I’d briefly like to mention one more disgusting difficulty in the life of a swazzler: Trying not to spit all over the place. After all, you’re forcing many bursts of air through your mouth, and performing all sorts of acrobatics with your tongue, lips, teeth etc. Plus, the very act of holding a small object in the back of your mouth seems to encourage above-average salivation. Whilst this is an issue that does appear to lessen with practice, I understand that it even affects expert swazzlers to some extend, and thus it is more a problem to be managed than solved. When practising, it is important to hold a handkerchief in front of your face unless you want to end up wiping globules of saliva off every nearby surface for days on end. And whatever you do, do not try and talk directly to someone’s face while using a swazzle. That is a very good way to lose a friend.
 

Cleaning
The first part of care and maintenance that any aspiring swazzler should be aware of is how to clean the thing. I have tried a few different options in this regard, and would like to share my results with you here. In fact, I would like that so much that I’m just going to go ahead and do it.
 

• Water is the obvious first choice for attempted cleaning, and the fact that the swazzle needs to be soaked before use anyway raises tantalising prospects of killing two birds with one stone. Sadly though, not all organic matter is water soluble, and this method doesn’t seem to get rid of all grime and mankiness by any means.
• Vinegar seemed another sensible idea, especially as it is known for its disinfectant as well as its cleaning properties. It may well have done an excellent job of cleaning the instrument, but the downside came when having to use it again afterwards. Now, I quite like the taste of vinegar, but there is a limit. And what’s more, my body’s attempts to neutralise the added acid only exacerbated the issue of excessive salivation.* I was also a little concerned that the acid may degrade the all-important vibrating piece of fabric, and so ultimately elected to leave this tangy substance well enough alone.
• The final cleaning solution I tried – and the one that I stuck with – was cold tea. I had read of other swazzlers recommending such a thing, and found that it apparently did a good job of disinfecting the swazzle without leaving behind any aftertaste. The one downside was that it tended to dye the fabric and the string wrap a pale brown, thereby making them look much dirtier than they had been to start with. But I considered that a small price to pay, and was on the whole satisfied with this method of swazzle cleaning.

Readjustments
Apart from cleaning, the main part of swazzle maintenance for me was a constant process of tweaks and readjustments. As a bassoonist, I am used to the never-ending task of trying to keep fickle, inconsistent reeds in good playing condition, and often found myself wondering which was more temperamental: bassoon reeds or swazzles. I think it’s about even. The other parallel with reeds is that the behaviour of the swazzle can make or break your performance, so it is imperative to get it into as optimal condition as possible.

For me, this meant constantly unwrapping and reassembling the instrument, trying every possible adjustment that might improve the sound. The metal plates I’d made, while pretty impressive, were by no means consistent or regular, and therefore there were many different configurations to be tried in an effort to achieve a good sound. Wrapping the fabric around also turned out to be a fine art, as it needed exactly the right amount of tension – too much or too little and it wouldn’t produce the required noise.
 

Making a sound with a swazzle is not hugely difficult. Making a sound that bears any resemblance to speech, however, is. And it seems the only way to get anywhere close is through practice.

Alphabet and Tongue Twisters
One strategy that I’ve heard of for learning to swazzle is to recite the alphabet slowly, practising each letter in isolation. This seems fair enough, but I found it to be of limited use as it doesn’t really reflect the common patterns found in everyday speech. My preferred approach was to find a comprehensive series of tongue twisters online and work through those on a regular basis. After all, these exercises are specifically devised for improving diction, and really give you a thorough workout of complex verbal acrobatics.

Poetry and Prose