Homemade Instruments!

Newsarchive 11b. of Fun Music Ideas

Three more things Thomas has since learned about pipes:

He says, "If you blow in one end without putting your hand over the other end, you get a pitch an octave higher.

One some pipes, you get the octave-higher pitch by drawing a bow across one edge.

You can also get the octave-higher pitch by dropping the pipe on a hard floor--only you can't control how many times the pipe bounces.

Thomas is the founding member of the Fun Music Ideas newsletter, which has monthly tricks and tips for the music educator. He also has a web site, called, The Pentatonic Music Collection. Drop by and see what else he has to offer.

Here's a sneak preview of something that will be in the upcoming Newsletter that Thomas started. This addition is from, Fifth grade teacher Melissa Hammonds who has a student who entered the classroom with a home-made rainstick.

"She used an empty gift wrap roll made of cardboard. The roll was filled with rice and taped closed on each end. She poked straight pins all up and down the roll and decorated it. It sounded almost just like a cactus rainstick!"

"Several straight pins are stuck into the cardboard randomly from top to bottom so that when the cylinder is turned upside down, the rice falls through bouncing off the straight pins and creating a cactus rainstick sound."

This is a great little site that has a gallery of homemade instruments images. It's called the Virtual Museum of Music Inventions. The web authoress has a place where you can submit your own ideas, offers a short lesson on how sound is made, and she has started a links page to other instrument sites. She would like for other schools to send her their musical instrument pictures. She can be reached at herexfor@op97.k12.il.us

Homemade Instruments These suggestions are from the Douglass Math and Science Academy.

Making and playing homemade instruments Schoolroom.com offers videos on how to make instruments.

Instruments This site has examples of Popipes, a Glass Marimba, Quarter-tone Glass Marimba, a Wooden Xylophone, Log Drums and PVC Talking Drum. It even has some sample sound files.

Mel Bay Publications Profile of Mark Nelson more materials and resources that can be ordered for your music classes.

A Recipe for making a Xylophone submitted by James Alberty.

Another recipe for making a xylophone submitted to the Music Ed list of ArtsEdge.