Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???

11 Nov 01 - 08:39 PM (#590498)
Subject: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: WyoWoman

Hi,gang,

I want to do a magazine article on instruments you can make yourself (for those of us who aren't professional instrument-makers). What are your suggestions? I'd like to narrow it down to maybe three or four and be able to provide directions and, eventually, photographs of the instruments being made. And these need to be instruments people will actually play in the company of other musicians. Not to insult Cleigh or anything, but probably blowing air up a small clay animal's behinder won't quite work for this particular purpose.

Thanks, ww/a.k.a. Ms. Editor Gal

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11 Nov 01 - 10:49 PM (#590565)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: GUEST,BigDaddy

A friend of mine occasionally creates something called a "canjo," which apparently is a banjo-like device made from a beer can. I've never asked for instructions as I might be tempted to make one myself. If you don't get enough answers I'll contact him. Here's hoping someone comes up with better than this.

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11 Nov 01 - 10:57 PM (#590570)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Dharmabum

try this,

http://www.ehhs.cmich.edu/~dhavlena/

DB.

--- URL corrected (you missed a /) and blickified. ---
---Jeff (PA)---

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12 Nov 01 - 01:25 AM (#590620)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: catspaw49

I can send some pix too if you want.....

Catspaw's Two String Stick Dulcimer

Spaw

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12 Nov 01 - 07:37 AM (#590702)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Bob Bolton

G'day WyoWoman,

My interest is Australian traditions ... especially the effect of improvised and portable instruments.

Some that have become iconic (dangerously close to clichés) would be:
The Tea Chest Bass - a string on a pole broom handle ~) and a wooden tea chest
The Lagerphone - lots of bootle tops looseky naile to a (broom)stick and played by a combination of bouncing, striking with a stick, rubbing with notches in the stick and twisting to sound small bells hung thereupon,
The bones: found anywhere that British influence is remembered (including many African regions that contributed slaves to early USA)
Various stringed instruments using tin containers ae resonators - I've just made a few for children's workshops at the Powerhouse museum, Sydney.
Whistles: Long traditions usinf anything from reeds, bamboo, willow sheafs ... to offcuts of plastic and metal pipe. I made my first in 1966 - and most recent this year.

Some of these must be acceptable ... ?!?

Reagrds,

Bob Bolton

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12 Nov 01 - 08:04 AM (#590710)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: WyoWoman

This is great. That site you mentioned, Dharmabum, is loaded with stuff. And 'Spaw, do you have photos scanned that you could email me?

G'day to you Bob. Do you happen to have any photos of any of the ones you've mentioned? I won't be doing the story for a while, and if I talk my editor into it, maybe I can get detailed instructions from you and some photos?

Good work, fellas! I'm thinking of doing this story, then having an accompanying piece on "Jam etiquette," or something related, since we've talked so much about that here. My interest is at least partially in the community-building aspects of music and I think there would be quite a bit of interest in this. My editor doesn't necessarily get it, but then she's not a music-head. So I just have to come up with a proposal that will convince her how cool it could be. She said Friday she was going to make me the Food and Music editor because those are the stories I'm always pushing. Fine with me ...

I'll stay tuned here for more.

ww

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12 Nov 01 - 10:20 AM (#590782)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Grab

Saw a "street percussion" thing a few years ago. What really impressed me was musical pipework. They'd got some of those long corrugated conduit pipes and tuned them! They were tuned by lenght presumably, then there was a skin over one end or something and they played these like large steel drums. Sounds like a cross between a kettledrum and kicking a drainpipe.

Graham.

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12 Nov 01 - 10:36 AM (#590792)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Bat Goddess

In the book How to Play Nearly Everything by Dallas Cline (Oak Publications) it tells how to make and play bones, washboard, washtub bass and bodhran.

Bat Goddess

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12 Nov 01 - 10:59 AM (#590811)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: GUEST,Russ

Dulcimer's built from kits are a possibility if you are not requiring that instruments be built from scratch. I've seen a number of them and they seem to be do-able projects for people with minimal woodworking skills. They usually sound OK. McSpadden makes a popular kit.

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12 Nov 01 - 10:59 AM (#590812)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: GUEST,Russ

I mean dulcimers. How humiliating in light of the "who's" thread.

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12 Nov 01 - 12:29 PM (#590867)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Homeless

What level of skill should be need to make and/or play these? Do you want rhythm or melody instruments?

I've make pan flutes from bamboo and acrylic, transverse flutes from bamboo and acrylic, and "xylophones" from conduit (available at any hardware store) all of which are pretty easy to make from simple tools. The flutes are a bit harder to play.

I've also made a tongue drum and a zither, either of which is a bit more work to make (uses power woodworking tools), but fairly easy to play.

I can supply picture how-to picture series for the flutes or xylophone, and instructions for any of them.

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12 Nov 01 - 01:12 PM (#590898)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: reggie miles

I've seen a group of third graders make rain sticks. So they can't be too difficult to create. They're not so very musical but they do produce an interesting effect.

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12 Nov 01 - 06:05 PM (#591135)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: JohnInKansas

A reference frequently cited is Making and Playing Musical Instruments by Jack Botermanns, Herman Dewitt, and Hans Goddefroy, University of Washington Press, Seattle.

Not a very large book, but it does contain discussion of sound production methods, some information on materials you can use, and very useful dimensions for making specific instruments.

Ten different kinds of flutes (including CleighClay.
About 15 kinds of "idiophones" such as rattles, clappers, "Jew's harp," and "musical saw."
A half dozen styles of drums.
Tin can banjo, African lyre, lute, clog fiddle, and hurdy gurdy.

If "real tools" are acceptable, The Amateur Wind Instrument Maker by Trevor Robinson (no relation), University of Massachusetts Press, has real dimensions and construction details for recorders, flutes, and more complex/modern instruments. Fewer pretty pictures and "primitive" instruments than the above, but very useable information.

I have a listing in my library index for Musical Instrument Design by Hopkin, but can't locate the book for a proper citation. My recollection is that this one deals mostly with instruments children could make - i.e. more "make from junk," although I can't be sure until I find it.

These three are ones I've found cited in more advanced instrument literature. Apparently they are well known, and might well be at your local library. None of the three cost me more than $25, but that was up to 6 years ago.

John

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12 Nov 01 - 06:43 PM (#591166)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Rollo

How about a Shalm?

You need a branch of SAMBUCUS NIGRA, I am not sure but I believe it is called "Hollow" in English. In German it is "Hollunder". Also a cork from a wine botle and a piece of lemonade straw, plus a flute to copy the positions of the holes.

Select a straight branch without twigs, a little bit thicker than a flute. The core of the branch is hollow, filled with a white, soft mass that is easy to remove. Also remove the bark.
Insert the cork to one end. If it is too thick, you can cut it down, otherwise you need a thinner branch.
Remove the cork again and drill a hole through it, from one end to the other. It should have the same diameter as the straw. You need about a thumbs length of the straw, which is to be inserted through the cork.
Make two cuts into one end of the straw, opposing each other and about 1 cm deep.

Now you can produce the first sounds on your shalm: The straw is fitted into the cork, and the cork is fitted into the hollow branch. You place the cut end of the straw between your lips and press it gently together. The cuts should be to the left and to the right, so the two square parts at the end of the straw will lie flat together. Now blow into the straw like "Pfff". Do you get a sound? If not, try changing the lips' position, or the strength of your breath.

The last step: Cut down the instrument to the length of the flute (measured between the wind hole and the foot), and copy the positions of the flute's holes onto the hollow branch. Now you can even play tunes on your shalm.

Tip: Let the hollow branch dry for a week or so before removing the core and the bark.

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12 Nov 01 - 08:18 PM (#591248)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: 53

you can always put rubber bands between your big toes and play the bands, you know there's a song called the rubberband man and it's supposed to be true. BOB

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12 Nov 01 - 09:07 PM (#591281)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: reggie miles

There was a young man from Portland (no this isn't a limerick) who became quite well known for his ability to play a rubber band using it as a reed instrument. He stretched it and blew through two pieces of a flat rubber band to produce musical tones. He even headlined his own electric rock band as a soloist on this most unusual instrument. This works similar to how the stretched opening of an inflated balloon can create musical tones. Or, reaching further back into obscurity, how people managed to play the tire pump by squeezing the hose together while pumping to create exact tones. I guess now that I've got that saw thing down I'll be lookin' for new frontiers to conquer. The tire pump may be just the ticket. Anyway it certainly could come in handy considerin' how often I sing notes flat.

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12 Nov 01 - 10:01 PM (#591316)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: GUEST,Nick

No Photos, No web addy, no instructions but I know tin/Penny whistles are makeable. PVC Pipe, Copper Pipe etc... No Help Nick

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12 Nov 01 - 10:23 PM (#591324)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Gypsy

Well, a classic for kids here, is to take a long piece of kelp, and stuff with dry sand. Bury in dry sand, and let bake until dry. You can make amazing horns this way, shaped just about anyway you want. By slicing the bulb off the end, you even have a bell. Of course, you need a convenient ocean.

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13 Nov 01 - 07:36 AM (#591466)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Bob Bolton

G'day WyoWoman,

If you PM me a suitable e-mail address, I will send some moderat sized JPeGs of instruments ... and my American paper sized MS Word file of a 12 page booklet on "Australian Traditional Instruments", that covers a few of these (and has drawing, some by me, some by more competent artists, of the main types.

I have to knock out some more photos - that I promised to Art Thieme, who helped me with ideas for the series of workshops I did last month. I didn't use anything exactly like his beaut stuff, but it was all grist to the mill.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

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13 Nov 01 - 11:14 AM (#591592)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Raptor

I had a drum workshop with kids And we made hand drums by streching packing tape over cut pieces of sonit tubes(not sure how to spell them but they are intended to fill with concrete to bury poles in the ground).

Raptor

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13 Nov 01 - 11:49 AM (#591629)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Rex

Well I make a washtub bass for kids using a large coffee can, a stick and some heavy string. I make flutes out of PVC pipe. Everyone does that. I make what I call a foot harp out of a slab of hard wood with zither pins drilled in. Tune it pentatonic like and let the kids go. Ah, drums, I make them out of hollowed elm and cottonwood. Rawhide on each end and rawhide cut into laces to hold them together. Then there's those limberjacks, limberhorses, limberspiders, limbercentipedes.....

Rex

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13 Nov 01 - 05:13 PM (#591879)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: JohnInKansas

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

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13 Nov 01 - 07:05 PM (#591984)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: savindwales

i would like to add the didgereedoo. made with pvc pipe.if nothing else, with a drilled end cap fitted to a 2 inch schedule forty pipe. useing an inch and a quarter hole saw and sand paper to smooth the hole edges, a kid could make some rather loud fart noises. or some interesting didg sounds. so far i've been able to hold a note for five minutes. circular breathing is not so hard. i still have no idea how dr. didg does it.

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13 Nov 01 - 07:11 PM (#591991)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: savindwales

by the way. i forgot to say that you can use graduated size pipes with connectors, or you can use a convenient kid size single size pipe from one to three feet long. stickers or paint to decorate. colourful as you please. savindwales.

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13 Nov 01 - 07:25 PM (#592001)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Allan C.

I think it would be fun to pop bubble wrap as a percussion instrument. *G*

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13 Nov 01 - 07:28 PM (#592004)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Allan C.

Next time try 'possum. It's the "other" white meat!

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13 Nov 01 - 07:31 PM (#592007)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Allan C.

Oops. Wrong thread!

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14 Nov 01 - 05:00 PM (#592717)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Arbuthnot

I had a book which tells how to make a useful basic violin - the body is a triangular-shaped box. There is also an interesting thing called a bowed psaltry, which is a lot of strings stretched over another triangular box. Both these were fairly simple to construct, and serious working instruments. I'm sorry I can't provide more info, but I'm fifteen years and two hundred miles away from the books I read. Re: Appalachian dulcimers - the design can also be simplified to a triangular box with round sound holes, making construction very easy.

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14 Nov 01 - 11:39 PM (#592948)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: WyoWoman

Very good suggestions here, thanks. It's ok if they require "real tools," as I'm wanting to have it in our "build-it" section. Nothing as complicated as a guitar, but some of the dulcimers and basic violins would be fine, and we could do something on some of the ultra-easy and quick stuff as well.

We might do a sidebar on drums you can make, and on drumming circles (this wasn't my idea, it was my editor's and I'm thinking it might be another issue altogether from the story package I'm envisioning, but we shall see).

Thanks for the excellent input. Once again, Mudcateers rise to the occasion.

ww

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14 Nov 01 - 11:46 PM (#592953)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: GUEST,dharmagirl

...then there are bones, washtub bass, and washboard...

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14 Nov 01 - 11:56 PM (#592962)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Bert

The simplest of all is the Dandelion Oboe. Just squash about 3/4 of an inch of the end of a dandelion flower stem until you get a double reed. It takes a bit of practice. You can also add a couple of holes in the stem to get different notes.

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15 Nov 01 - 06:37 PM (#593602)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: JohnInKansas

It seems I applied html magic to write the title of Barry Foy's book in invisible ink. Citation should have been:

Field Guide to the Irish Music Session, Barry Foy, Roberts Rinehart Publishers, 1999, ISBN 1-57098-241-4.

Also, when I clicked "go to thread" the Supersearch took me to the "post" within the thread. The thread links I posted get you some arbitrary post within applicable(?) threads, but I didn't intend to link specific persons' comments. Navigate once you get there to read the whole thread.

John

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15 Nov 01 - 06:50 PM (#593614)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Gypsy

Bucket bass, using a five gallon bucket. Played with a woman who used that as her "traveling bass" cuz her good one was too big, and too fragile to go everywhere.

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18 Nov 01 - 07:34 PM (#595319)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: GUEST

Hey - here's a cello made from styrofoam-

StyroCello

Cheers, Bardford

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02 Jan 02 - 05:00 PM (#620062)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: GutBucketeer

I read this thread sometime ago, and remembered seeing how to make a $12 Ukelele on a site, somewhere. Well today, I finally came across the site again. "FolkUrban". It describes how to make a $12.00 Uke, a $5.00 Clarinet, a toilet ocarina, and the list goes on and on. Some real fun stuff. The link is here:

FolkUrban and the $12.00 Uke

and here is another general link on instruments in general that includes making musical instruments.

Instrument sites from aj-glass

JAB

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22 Sep 08 - 10:38 AM (#2447262)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: katlaughing

That's a neat site, JAB!

Bob, we went to a farm market on Saturday. They sell bottles of Jackson Hole Soda Company sodas there, opening the bottles for customers who are thirsty and can't wait to get home to drink them. At the register, they had a small basket full of bottle caps. I asked how much they'd take for them. The lady said they weren't for sale as the owner wanted to make a boot scraper with them. She asked me why I wanted them. I told her about lagerphones and how we've had trouble getting enough caps because we don't drink from bottles. Just as we were getting ready to leave, she casually put them in a bag, the whole basket full, and handed them to me! I promised to show her the finished product when my grandson and I get it made! So, finally, I can make one for real and share a bit of what you've taught us here, at Mudcat. Thanks, again, my friend!

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22 Sep 08 - 12:17 PM (#2447334)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Mr Red

Xlyphone - you can cut wood or metal to length, support the notes on string - I am sure there is a correct position at a null 1/4 in from the ends.

Tuning with a hacksaw - keep the blade for tuning the banjo.

Certain metals (springy or hard) do better than (say) copper. Woods- similar, hardwoods well seasoned. Thicknes and witdh - I have no idea but one look at one in a shop would tell you.

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22 Sep 08 - 03:17 PM (#2447517)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: GUEST,Volgadon

It's a process of trial and error, but reed flutes are fairly simple.

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22 Sep 08 - 09:22 PM (#2447775)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: GUEST,Rich

Check these folks out.


http://www.terrydame.com/tdame_ejg.html

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22 Sep 08 - 11:38 PM (#2447828)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Gurney

If you slap the open ends of large tuned tubes you will get a sound like a percussive oboe. There's one at a local museum playcentre, plastic drainage pipes, looks like part of a pipe-organ, played with rubber 'flyswats.' Not terribly portable!
Would be fun getting the lengths right, though. I imagine you'd do it with drilling, first.

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23 Sep 08 - 12:12 AM (#2447847)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: katlaughing

rich, thanks for the link! I was fortunate to attend a gamelan concert once in Wyoming of all places. Loved it and have been fascinated by the instruments and their sounds ever since. These folks have some really great sounds and very interesting instruments! I'll have to try the rubber band harp!

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23 Sep 08 - 12:59 AM (#2447868)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: The Fooles Troupe

"plastic drainage pipes, looks like part of a pipe-organ, played with rubber 'flyswats.' Not terribly portable!"

Aussie Lindsay Pollock (mentioned here before) is famous (or should that be infamous) in Australia for using 'weird shit' to make instruments, and carries one of those drainage pipe gizmos around with him to fairs, etc that is played with the sole pieces of rubber thongs - the Aussie description!

Just google him, you'll find out how to make a 'clari-carrot'...
He even plays a bicycle...

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23 Sep 08 - 12:23 PM (#2448224)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Andy Jackson

Percusion pipes go to
Tom Tom-Tommimg
and nip down to the photo 26 to see one actually in use.
Then there is always the old favorite, the Humstrum.
No picture but... Fix a lenght of string from one end to the other of a rulker such that it traps a bean tin/can underneath at righ angles. Push the tin to one end and wedge to stop it moving. Now play the string with a bow of some sort and out will issue a not very musical noise!!!
Can be heard on Tim Laycock's "Lydlinch Bells" CD.
Sorry, another Forest Tracks
plug.

Good luck

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23 Sep 08 - 12:32 PM (#2448237)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Bert

He even plays a bicycle...

Hmmm, it wouldn't be too difficult to tune a bike wheel, Just get a spoke key and a chromatic tuner. As long as you don't expect the wheel to remain true.

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23 Sep 08 - 05:10 PM (#2448468)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: sian, west wales

Or you could try a pibgorn.

sian

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23 Sep 08 - 06:47 PM (#2448529)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: katlaughing

sian, I LOVE the way those sound!!! Thanks so much. (Takes me back in time!)

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23 Sep 08 - 06:57 PM (#2448536)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Jack Campin

Look up the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra on YouTube.

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23 Sep 08 - 07:14 PM (#2448546)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Sandra in Sydney

don't forget the
Barcoo Dog

sandra

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23 Sep 08 - 10:55 PM (#2448644)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Gurney

Then there's the Oz group Absolutly Gourdgeous, who make formal instruments from gourds, but also use them to amplify quiet instruments. They get three times the volume from a thumb piano, which is worth thinking about.

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23 Sep 08 - 11:09 PM (#2448651)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: katlaughing

What fun, Gurney!

Absolutely Gourdgeous on youtube.

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24 Sep 08 - 12:22 AM (#2448680)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Cap't Bob

If you would like to hear and see Dennis Havlena play some of the instruments he has made go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLhRtV1xKiM

To check out the web site where he has plans for a lot of home made instruments go to the web site mentioned by Daharmabum (third post down from the top).

I build the garbage can bass from this web site and it has a great sound.

Cap't Bob

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24 Sep 08 - 12:39 PM (#2449030)
Subject: RE: Help: Instruments You Can Make Yourself???
From: Irene M

If you can get your hands on a copy of Ronald Roberts book Musical Instruments Made To Be Played, published by Dryad, there are instructions and plans for all sorts. It's where I got the plan for my Bowed Psaltery. I made it in school as a 16 year old, then went on to make 5 more, including one for The Corries.

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