How To Play Music With An Uncooked Hot Dog

They say that necessity if the mother of invention, but its kind of sketchy stepdaddy has got to be boredom. How else would you explain the fact that somebody evidently made the discovery that you could make music using...a hot dog? Um, okay. Now, songs about hot dogs are actually not hard to come by, as these totally tubular steaks have been celebrated by artists ranging from Led Zeppelin, to Limp Bizkit, to They Might Be Giants, and on shows like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Actually using a hot dog as a musical instrument, though? How do you even do that? Hollow it out and play it like an ocarina (a weinerina?), perhaps? Or, would you hit two hot dogs against each other to make a squishy kind of percussion?

Uh, well, no, it looks like it's not nearly as easy as all that. Making music out of hot dogs requires some complicated-looking electronic equipment, and presumably some high-tech know-how.

According to the old adage (which we just made up), if you can dream it up, somebody's already made a video about it. Thus, of course there's such a thing as hot dog music, courtesy of a Twitter video posted by a user, who goes by the handle "beef," and an earlier YouTube video entitled Hot Dog Music made by Jonathan Hodges. Incidentally, Food & Wine believes "beef" and Hodges to be the same person. 

Regardless, in the YouTube video, the "music" is created by plugging raw hot dogs into what the video's description reveals to be an "electronic acupunctuscope," which is not an instrument but a medical device. The Twitter video also shows hot dogs being plugged into another device, apparently a different one, although similar sounds, which could possibly be considered music (depending on your taste for electronica) ensue.

Alas, it looks like that pack of dollar store franks alone won't allow you to perform your own symphony. If you're truly bored, you can always practice for the next Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contest — you might be the next one to dethrone Joey Chestnut! Or else, you could get creatively crazy, dreaming up new recipes so those hot dogs can make beautiful music inside your mouth.