What kind of instruments can I make?

Question

What instruments can I make by recycling things?

Answer 1

Depends a bit on what sort of instruments you are talking about.

Musical instruments?

The easiest would be drums and other percussion. Mount anything on a rack in a rough order of size or cool sounds when struck. I saw a percussionist perform on a drum kit made of: plastic rubbish bin bass, coffee tin toms, tin lid ride cymbals ... etc

Other percussion - anything ribbed could be an improvised guiro(?sp)

Strings - you can make a tea-chest bass out of a long piece of wood, a wooden box and a suitable string.

Wind - you would need some bottles or something long and thin that you can fill to various levels with fluid and make a pan-pipe sort of thing. You could make a didgeridoo out of any amount of pipe wide enough to go around your lips. You could try making something like a brass instrument if you have narrower pipe.

I once saw a TV programme with a very creative man who made instruments out of vegetables. He whittled away a sweet potato - finger holes and all - and put a clarinet mouthpiece in it. He made a celery trombone and a bunch of other things out of vegetables. I don't expect they were very long lived.

Answer 2

You could make a wind instrument for all the hot air the global warmers always seem to be blowing.

Answer 3

It's pretty easy to make drums and rattles. You may also be able to make some kind of "horn" by using a piece of wide tubing and blowing into it while "buzzing" your lips.

Stretch rubber bands or string across various items to make a guitar-like sound.

Answer 4

Check out this link on how to make homemade instruments:

http://www.nyphilkids.org/lab/main.phtml?

Hope this helps!