Chad Bernstein found his mollusk muse in a Key West tourist shop. While on vacation a few years ago Bernstein, then a student at the University of Miami Frost School of Music, saw a pile of conch shells for sale. He had just witnessed the famous salute to sunset in Mallory Square, where locals blow a long mournful blast through the natural horn.

Bernstein, a trombone player, put a shell to his lips.

And blew and blew. A half-hour later, Bernstein emerged from the shop with two shells, custom cut for playing. Thus began an extracurricular pursuit that has become a signature component -- tropical and timeless -- of the sound of 21st century Miami.

As a member of two key Latin-funk fusion bands, Suenalo Sound System and Spam Allstars, Bernstein plays the conch. On any given evening, you may find him at Hoy Como Ayer or Tobacco Road. Usually he plays the trombone, but every now and then he puts down the brass and picks up a conch -- sometimes two conchs at once.

In Key West, in a movie, maybe at school, most of us have probably heard a conch. It sounds like something from another world, the world under the water -- Poseidon's pipes. ''They're God's Theremin,'' Bernstein says of the sound, referring to the electronic instrument that is played by moving hands through the air and whose eerie tones are famous as sound effects in old science-fiction movies.

''The sound of a conch shell is full and warm,'' Bernstein says. ``It's old as time.''

A WORLD OF MUSIC

In South Pacific islands such as Fiji, the shells of conchs -- which are essentially saltwater snails -- have been used as musical instruments for centuries. They are blown at Hindu ceremonies and depicted in Mayan art. In more modern times, the late jazz musician Rahsaan Roland Kirk included conchs among the many instruments he played, pioneering a bop take on the shell. Trombonist Steve Turre of the Saturday Night Live band is a conch virtuoso and leads a group of players called the Sanctified Shells.

Bernstein saw Turre play the conch in a Chicago bar when he was still a teen and is also a fan of Kirk. Given the affinities between the trombone and conch shell -- both are played primarily using the mouth, with the movement of one hand also shaping the sound -- Bernstein's attraction, once he moved to Florida from Chicago, was probably inevitable.

''It's something that just happened, not something I planned to do,'' says Bernstein, who taught himself to play the shell.

THE LATIN INFLUENCE

Bernstein, now 25, came to South Florida to study music. He was looking at various schools, but ''once I came to Miami, I stopped visiting other places,'' he says. Though Bernstein describes himself as a ``complete gringo from the Chicago suburbs, I always had an affinity for Latin music and funk: things that feel good and make you dance.''

The lanky, bearded jazz student quickly found his way into Miami's music scene. He sat in with Suenalo at Jazid, and soon he was a member of the band. About a year later -- around the same time he started playing conch -- Bernstein also took over the trombone position in the Allstars. He now divides his time between the bands.

''It's a real blessing to be able to play with musicians of that caliber and people of that caliber,'' Bernstein says. ``That's my family.''

HE'S NO BLOWHARD

Don't be fooled by Bernstein's easygoing manner and way with a conch: He's got serious chops, the kind of talent that has landed him serial fellowships. He's now in the doctoral program at the Frost School and teaches world music there.

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