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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.
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Technologist and Podcaster living in Memphis, TN. Always looking to make the best of the next opportunity and a really hot cup of coffee. Tunes:Uncovered is my podcast about songs you probably have not heard but should! — Mark White
Behringer U-Phoria UMC404HD USB Audio Interface — Most of my podcasts are remote, this unit makes it easy to still have channel specific control but it's small, lightweight and needs no external power.
SENSARTE Nonstick Frying Pan Skillet — breakfast gets more important as we age, this frying pan absolutely will not stick to anything you throw in it. Excellent for eggs.
DIGITAL
Spotify — whether it's listening to podcasts while cleaning the workshop or background music it's hard to beat Spotify's breadth of shows, songs, and music.
Structured App — Multiple daily reminders of the things a busy person will forget to do. Drink more water, spend 30 minutes on a side project for 30 days, etc.
INVISIBLE
If you want to be productive, wake up early. If you want to be creative, stay up late.
Not sure who said this but it's true, at least for me.
