I went to school in a small college in Vermont called Bennington, just about 600 and some

people in the middle of the woods, at least when I was there.

And because of this, there was not always a ton to do, so as a young mischievous person,

you were occasionally looking for, I don't know, things to get into, little adventures

to have on this small college campus.

I had heard a story, in the very top of the main campus dining hall, there was an attic,

a locked third floor, but I had heard if you could get in there, there was something fantastical

inside.

And so one evening after everyone was gone and it was quiet, I went up and found a way

into a room that had a little trancem window open into that attic space.

And I climbed on in.

I saw these crazy looking contraptions, I didn't know what they were at first until I went

over and tapped them or started pulling a string or realized they were instruments.

As it turns out, this was not a completely unique experience.

For years, students at Bennington had been whispering about this locked room, occasionally

breaking in and getting a glimpse of these pretty magical creations.

These strange objects were all created by a Bennington professor named Gunner Schoenbeck.

And he expanded the very idea of what an instrument could be.

He expanded it to include that we might all be instrument makers, and that absolutely

everyone is a musician.

I'm Dylan Thoris, and this is Atlas of Skira, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible

and wondrous places, and today we are going to join Gunner Schoenbeck's orchestra.

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