Are forks just for eating with?

Bonjour! It’s Nancy here – from the soon-to-be world famous pop group Nancy and the Meerkats!

After our first record “Put Your Paws Up” became a massive hit, we’re off on a huge tour of the UK!

We haven’t quite made it to stadium status yet – some of the venues are more Weeny than Wembley – but I’m going to be letting you know what’s been going on each day in my journal for Fun Kids!

We’re in London now for the next leg of the tour – although we did have a few, erm, artistic differences earlier…

It started when I checked one of our online fan sites and saw that moth-eaten old moggy Kitty Perry had been all over it saying that we were singing out of tune at our last gig!

Lots of comments agreed with her and this led to a big argument among the band about who’s fault it was!

Luckily Big Joe was on hand to calm me and the Meerkats down!

He told us that you shouldn’t take anything you see on the internet too seriously and that’s it’s quite easy to fix being out of tune!

Later, at the soundcheck before the gig, he brought something along to help sort out the tuning problem called a tuning fork!

It’s not just any old fork – and you definitely wouldn’t be able to eat your dinner with it! It’s kind of thicker… with just two long prongs. Weird!

According to Big Joe, the tuning fork was invented in 1711 by John Shore, a Sergeant Trumpeter to the English Royal Court.

He understood how science could help instruments to use notes which sounded exactly the same as each other – that’s what “in tune” means, basically!

Apparently, the way tuning forks are made means that when they’re hit and the soundwaves are sent out into the air, they’re at exactly the same frequency as other tuning forks and so will always make the note sound the same!

That meant we could adjust our instruments until they sounded the same as the tuning fork – a.k.a. “in tune” at last!

Listen to this episode of Nancy and the Meerkats below…

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