The majority has made a musical instrument at some point in their education – at Play College you could make a rattle or shaker, and often at college or craft groups scholars finish up making instruments . designing your own musical instruments can be harder and fascinating. Making instruments does not need to be the preserve of small children – adults can like it also especially when the design aspect is introduced.

Beginning your project doesn’t need to mean a gigantic monetary outlay on tools and materials. For your first instrument making project, it’s a sensible idea to use recycled materials or junk you would have thrown out anyhow – that way it will not matter if you blunder! Recycled materials are not simply for amateurs, either – I wrote my university dissertation on recycled instruments, and discovered that they can sound strange and superb in their own right.

The 1st call you want to make is what sort of instrument you need to build. Percussion instruments have a high success rate, while strings may need more work and woodwind or brass style instruments frequently need complicated systems. Percussion instruments are actually not restricted to drums and un-pitched instruments – if you need to make a pitched percussion instrument, the sky’s the limit! You might also think about planning a half-breed instrument – a mate of mine made a successful combination cajon / mbira out of an old tool chest which sounds superb. The two original instruments come from different states, are totally different sounding – one pitched, one not – and he had to make the mbira part about 10 times larger than an ordinary one to accomodate the dimensions of the cajon, however it worked!  Read more...