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Best DIY instrument how-to
Here are three great guides for making your own musical instruments. Advantages of making your own: 1) Personalized, 2) Cheaper, 3) Types no one else sells, 4) Satisfaction of making. There is not much overlap of instruments featured between these three books. The coolest of the three guides is Making Gourd Musical Instruments. It has very explicit step-by-step instructions for making 60 instruments using lightweight gourds as the sound amplifiers. Gourds enable wind, string and percussion instruments – so you could make an entire orchestra. This book has the most variety of musical options and great examples of world-wide traditional instruments for inspiration. If you can get only one of these three books, this should be it.
Making Musical Instruments by Hand is a good guide for making instruments from wood and wood veneers. Their builds are a little more complex resulting in instruments that may look more “professional.” They require a bit more skills and tools, although none out of the ordinary.
But if you are making your own instruments, why not make ones that have never existed before? Sound Designs, an older book, lays out helpful hints for making 50 different unorthodox instruments using salvage materials. It stresses innovative interpretations: how about oxygen bottles for bells, or electrical conduit xylophones? Its intent is to encourage you to not just make your own musical instruments, but to invent them as well. – KK
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A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. All reviews on this site are written by readers who have actually used the tool and others like it. Items can be either old or new as long as they are wonderful. We post things we like and ignore the rest. Suggestions for tools much better than what is recommended here are always wanted.
OXO Good Grips Handheld Mandoline Slicer - probably the most lethal cooking implement in my kitchen. You HAVE to treat these with respect otherwise they will eat your fingertips. Ask me how I know.
MyHalos 100% Blackout Sleep Mask - I finally bought one of these when my sleep kept being interrupted by cars going past my house at night. The difference is day and night. Sorry. I’ll get my coat.
SWEETFULL Small USB Desk Fan - a small, cheap, USB powered fan. It plugs into my Anker USB hub and gives a pretty impressive performance for such a small device.
DIGITAL
I'm in the UK but subscribe to the New York Times digitally. Their cookery pages are outstanding. Obviously, the whole "cups" and "Fahrenheit" thing is a bit daft but the recipes are great. I bought a set of cups to help the conversion process.
This one is a bit UK-centric but it's very useful for us. Petrol and diesel prices are through the roof at the moment and any way to save a few quid is welcome. This website tracks prices at the pump so you can find cheaper fuel.
INVISIBLE
A song which I recently found has a great lyric which resonates well with me. It's called "A River Runs" by Oysterband.
you are my mate, my long-lost friend you are my hope, my resonance you are the edge, my hidden blade you carry all the plans we made
you are the path, my hidden trail you are the end, my holy grail you are my mood, my sudden rage you are my wit, my final page
there are no certainties we could fall, we could break apart you pick me up, you smile then the whole world starts
a river runs through you and me never reaches the ocean, never reaches the sea
a river runs through you and me never reaches the ocean, never reaches the sea
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