Various members of the hornlist have been spreading spurious information about how to play the conch.
I have a Conch 8D in mint condition. (This is one of the older Conches. made before the move to Texas. IMHO, the quality control was pretty poor after they went to Abalone.) The actual playing technique depends on the kind of conch you have. Helpful hint: choose a conch that is no longer alive. Otherwise, I think you will find the business of knocking a hole in the pointy end and blowing will be quite frustrating indeed. Recently deceased Conches should be avoided for similar reasons.
Although Punto played the Conch Solo, modern instrumentalists will favor the Conch a pistons. In fact, I had Lawson convert mine into a descant by adding a bivalve. This is the instrument which I have used for all my famous solos: the Adagio from Beethoven's Coral Symphony; the opening licks in Strauss' Ein Shelldenleben; the solo in Debussy's orchestration of Satie's Trois Gastropodies, and of course, Brahms' Conch Trio Op. 41, for which the violin was performed by David Oysterak. If there were a few more of us Conch virtuosi in the world, I would be interested in touring in performances of Schumann's remarkably difficult Conchertstuck.
Needless to say, all my performances are perfectly free from clams.
Gotta go,
Cabbage