"There is simply not enough things happening in the area to stimulate mind, body and spirit." Such are the words of 26-year-old musician and composer Daniel Trudeau.

To do something about it, the Placerville-based Trudeau, also known as Pregnant, sent out a call online for willing musicians to join him in a first-time "G hum parade."

The only requirement to join the parade, which took place Saturday in midtown Sacramento, was the ability or desire to hum, strum, pluck, blow or bang out a G note while walking or riding.

Seventy-four musicians answered his call.

The parade began inside midtown's Bows and Arrows vintage clothing store. The path led outside the store onto 19th street for the one-mile trek along S Street toward Southside Park.

Joining 24 guitarists were several ukulele players, two drummers, a clarinetist, bassoonist and a saxophonist. Some instruments were homemade, including a one-string violin made out of a box, ruler and wooden branch.

"I made this one in my garage" said Dan Quillan, guitarist for the band Art Lessing and the Flower Vato about the impromptu violin.

Like everyone who chose to walk in the parade, Quillan had a unique reason for participating.

"I came down here because I like it when someone comes up with an art project that seems a little too big for its britches," he said.

For some, it was a rare opportunity to walk and play an instrument that typically serves a lifelong sentence indoors.

"There are not that many opportunities to bring the bassoon out in public, said bassoonist Petra Lee. "I'll bust it out for any opportunity."

Others were trying out their instrument in public for the first time.

"I haven't been playing this instrument for very long," said 15-year-old pianist and singer Sara Greer about the ukulele she cradled with both arms. "I got the instrument for Christmas."

Others came for purely sonic reasons.

"I came to this because I've daydreamed about how great it would be to hear the sound of all these people playing G," said guitarist Dean Haakenson. "To feel the tonal harmonics coming from that will be like chanting in some Buddhist monastery scenario."

So what did this "G hum parade" sound like?

Very much like listening to the low bottom note drone of a bagpipe, sans the high reedy melody notes that usually hover above it. It was reverberant and entrancing, especially when heard indoors.

As the parade of musicians slowly made its way down S Street, onlookers looked on – some with utter confusion, others with the immediate desire to capture the procession on their cellphone.

Bows and Arrows co-owner Trisha Rhomberg was excited to let the parade start at her establishment because of its decidedly analog nature.

"Right now, especially in this age of viral marketing and viral friendship, we're used to feeling connected through Internet stuff or following blogs … so I love it that Daniel wants people to be in the same space and hear the same sounds at the same time," she said. "And I think it is great that this allows people to talk about things together as a group as well as share ideas."

In the final accounting there was less interaction as a group than there were individuals, couples and trios traveling down the street.

That may or may not have something to do with parade organizer Trudeau being keen on letting the procession evolve on its own, without much meddling.

This made it the most democratic of parades, and also lightly dangerous, with musicians parading across red lights while placid Saturday midtown drivers waited for them to pass.

For Trudeau, the parade seemed almost necessary in a Zen kind of way.

"There are tribes all over the world that do this thing for no good reason at all," he said.

"Plus, we have parades for almost everything … holidays, football games. So why not have one for the ear, and just the ear?"

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