Home-made-instruments

Subject: Home-made-instruments
From: Cap't Bob
Date: 03 Feb 99 - 11:18 AM

I will try this one last time as the last listing was under "Unusual Instruments" and only "Unusual" printed out - here goes again. TESTIMONIAL: Katlaughing describes this site as awsome!

I have a friend (Dennis Havlena) who works on Mackinaw Island, MI ~ in his spare time he builds musical instruments. He has plans for all of these instruments on his homepage (all free of course). I tried his hurdy gurdy that he build for arount $20 and it really sounds great. His homepage is: http://edcen.ehhs.cmich.edu/~dhavlena/ Hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Subject: RE: Home-made-instruments
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 03 Feb 99 - 06:11 PM

This is a favourite site of mine - is it included among the Mudcat Links?

I modofied a guitar to make an Irish bouzouki/citern with instructions from this site.

Regards John

Subject: RE: Home-made-instruments
From: mike cahill (inactive)
Date: 04 Feb 99 - 04:27 PM

yes I've come across his page as well, very inventive. I've had a couple of goes at making instruments flutes out of poly waste pipe psaltries using the pins salveged from an auto harp and several hammered and plucked dulcimers I've never spent more than about œ20 on them and sometimes Ive been pleased with the results, although I do have a tendency to "improve" them to distruction. I alvays tend to make 2 or 3 of each instrument the 1st. one is usually rubbish the 3rd one is "getting there" but then I lose intrest and go onto something else

Subject: RE: Home-made-instruments
From: reggie miles
Date: 05 Feb 99 - 03:08 PM

One of my first experiences working with other entertainers as a group left me feeling outcast at first. There were too many guitar players in the band and because my style of finger-pickin' didn't blend well with the format we were exploring the mandolinist handed me his washboard and said here you play this. I've played alot of washboard since that day twenty years ago. My board has and is still going through alot of metamorphosis. The idea of creating my own percussion gizmo has spilled over into my guitar work too. The last ten years I've been playing my own guitars. I have no formal training as a luthier. Rather I've just been unable to afford that which I've sought for in a guitar. Jug band music seems to tell the story. Musicians who did not let of lack of $ stop their pursuit of making music. They made due with what ever they could lay their hands on and improvised on things never intended to create music on with amazing results. I just followed their lead. I wanted an old resonator guitar but soon found that desire impossible to fulfill. Those with more money in hand always seemed to beat me to the deal. So after twenty years of frustration I figured I could more easily make a resonator guitar and I did. It isn't much to look at but I played that my first guitar for five years and then I took the lessons I learned constucting that first one and made a second. It's been about five years since I put this my second guitar together out of pieces of an old recorder player, door kick-plate, piano sound board, vegetable steamer, baseball bat, table leg, drum stick and I can't wait to do another. The caftsmanship in this second one is far above what I managed in my first and I imagine I'll do even better in my future attempts. If someone like me with only frustration driven desire and no formal training can do this I don't think it's out of anyone else's reach to do the same. Each time I perform I try to include the story about my guitar in hope that others will do the same and they have. Someone I'd never met before who had heard me tell the story during one of my shows went off and made two guitars, one for himself and one for a friend. The three of us got together and compared our labors. I was thirlled that someone took the idea and had such good results. Most recently I've been working with the mysteries of the musical saw. Now how difficult do you think it would be to make one of these??? Reggie

Subject: RE: Home-made-instruments
From: Bert
Date: 05 Feb 99 - 03:13 PM

Those sound great Reggie, Do you have any pictures to show us??

Bert.

Subject: RE: Home-made-instruments
From: Slider (inactive)
Date: 05 Feb 99 - 06:58 PM

I now have the inspiration I needed to try this. A friend of mine likes to make all sorts of things from pieces he gets from salvage yards, surplus houses,etc. I may have to go with him to the junkyard and see what falls out of the compactor. Who knows? I might be the first guy on my block to make and own a yugolele.

Subject: RE: Home-made-instruments
From: gargoyle
Date: 06 Feb 99 - 12:00 AM

Dear Capt. Bob

Where you able to build it for UNDER $20.00...

W hen I finished pounding on saws....it occured to me that a "musical-saw-hurdy-gurdy" is viable variation on a theme.

Subject: RE: Home-made-instruments
From: Cap't Bob
Date: 06 Feb 99 - 08:43 AM

I must admit in this era of rural development, "dumps", once a fantastic source of free materials have gone by the wayside. No longer can you take one load to the dump and bring home two. I feel sorry for folks who just bag the stuff for the trash collector. We happen to live in an area where "transfer sites" are still the vogue and with a kind word to the fellow in charge he will glean the incomings and set "materials" aside for you to pick on your next visit. A song I wrote a few years back, "The Dump Pickers Lament", addresses this problem. There are plenty of sources of free materials out there but you really have to look around.

Subject: RE: Home-made-instruments
From: reggie miles
Date: 06 Feb 99 - 02:54 PM

Bert, my access to this site is limited to what the public library here in Sultan, WA USA has to offer. I must admit here as well that I'm not so sure I'd know how to send a picture via cyber space to you. You see though I have managed to turn ordinary household items into musical instruments I have as yet been unable to master this process of communication. I'm still a bit of a cyber virgin. But if you have an address I think I could send something postal. My guitar doesn't outwardly look very different. It's just made of weird stuff. Reggie