G'day Duane and All,

With a particular interest in improvised traditions in Australian Bush Music, I have dabbled .. and often specialised ... in:
Lagerphone - an old broomstick or a bush sapling covered in loosely nailed bottletops, plus optional folly bells, rattles and jingles. This is played by bouncing rhythmically on a rubber crutch tip while playing subordinate beats with a notched, wooden striker
Bones - both bone and wooden (you can't get the good old big, solib bones the "... real ivory ones ..." these days. I have been experimenting over the last year with different Australian (and occasionally feral) woods and have samples made from some 40 odd different woods.
Barcoo Dog: This is a forked stick or a "slingshot" shape in fence wire with a collection of old tin lids and bottle tops threaded along a length of wire ... a sort of 'Bush Tambourine' except that its first role in life is to herb sheep, in the home paddock, when your sheep dog has sneaked off to the creek to cool down and gone mysteriously deaf.
Bush Bass: This is a loose string bass using a tea chest for a body. The string is attached to the centre of the top face of the tea chest and the other end is tied to a broomstick or sapling and the string is tensioned by levering back the top while the bottom is captured in a small hole or a nailed-on bottletop. A good player can keep notes in tune an perform spectacular glissandos.
Other improvised instruments are generally attempts to approximate a standard instrument with something that can be made from materials at hand and I occasionally make these, but I don't play them regularly.

Regards,

Bob Bolton