Urgent! Due Tomorrow! Xylophone help!?

Question

I made a xylophone out of copper pipes for physics, but I can't get the pipes to make a good sound. The pipes hangs by strings, which are looped over a broomstick, so I can tap them and play a song. But only a couple pipes make a clear sound. Any pointers or reasons why this is happening?

Answer 1

Have you tried to tune the pipes? (If they are far out of tune they sometimes sound dull, like a cracked glass.)
Are they hanging free? If they touch something they will not sound clear.
Are the top and the bottom in all the same way (all open or all closed?)
Can you see a difference between the pipes that sound good and those that sound bad, like size of the hole, tightness of the string round the pipe, length of the string?

I hope you can find it, it is great to make music on an instrument you have build yourself.

Answer 2

Hamlet ha just promised his father's ghost that he will take revenge on his murderer (Hamlet's uncle, the present King). In order to achieve this he must resort to trickery so that he is not suspected. Hope this helps.

Answer 3

http://staff.tamhigh.org/lapp/book.pdf



http://www.tidewater.net/~xylojim/xylocons.html

http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0031-9120/38/4/304

http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ679193&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=eric_accno&accno=EJ679193