They say the first thing to go is the ??? - guess I can't remember what they say.

I have located my copy of Musical Instrument Design: Practical Information for Instrument Making by Bart Hopkin, See Sharp Press, 1966, ISBN 1-884365-08-6.

Quite obviously, I had it confused with something else.

The Hopkin book is a very thorough discussion of principles of how to construct a very wide variety of musical instruments. Methods of sound production for most classes of "serious" instruments are discussed, along with suggetions on how to apply the principles to "amateur built" and "fun built" projects.

If there is a weakness in this book - for what I expect to be the purpose of the request - it is that it covers so much that you sometimes have to dig out the details.

There are other sources for "recipe" instruments that may be more appropriate if you just have to get something going, but I can certainly recommend this one if you have time to look into what makes your instrument work (and what you need to do to make it work well).

Again, it should be available in libraries, althouh my copy was only $20 (from Borders, 1999).

John