The Magazine of The Sierra Club
Musical instruments can cost an arm and a leg. Good thing you can make them yourself from cheap materials like nails, tin cans, and dry pasta. Homemade instrument specialist Daria Marmaluk-Hajioannou, who recently released an e-book and accompanying CD, shared some of her DIY projects, which we've included along with others found online.
Daria currently has an e-book available featuring 10 instruments to celebrate Earth Day. These homemade music instruments are perfect crafts to make with kids and the young at heart. Relying on common household items, they’re inexpensive and allow recycled items to shine in a new way!
Balloon bongo: Kate from the blog Mini Eco created an amazing 3-in-1 instrument using just a few common household items. Fetch those tin cans out of the recycling bin and you’ll soon find yourself with a balloon bongo drum, a rice shaker, and a güiro (a Latin American instrument made from a gourd). Mix it up with different colored rubber bands and balloons.
Sistrum: Sistrums were commonly used by musicians in ancient Egyptian temples, but it’s not too hard to come up with your own modern version (pictured above). All you need are a Y-shaped tree branch or old hanger and a few bottle caps and washers to go in the middle.
Egg shakers: Mama Smiles blogger MaryAnne crafted up an entertaining rainy day activity with these fancy egg shakers (pictured to the right). Simply add uncooked rice, quinoa, or beans to leftover plastic Easter eggs..
Rainstick: This rainstick tutorial from Anna of The Imagination Tree is a little bit more labor-intensive, but the final product will be worth the extra trouble. Small, dry pasta or beans trickle like a rain shower down the nail-ridden tube. Decorate the exterior to add a personal touch.
Australian clapstick. Clapsticks, or bilma, have been used by aboriginal tribes in Australia to keep rhythm during chants. You can make your own version by, well, banging two sticks together. The fun part is engraving and painting them.
--First and third images courtesy of Daria, second image courtesy of Mama Smiles
Jessica Zischke is a former editorial intern at Sierra. She is currently studying environmental studies at Dartmouth College. On campus she works as an editor of Dartbeat, the blog of the student-run newspaper The Dartmouth, and as the Sustainability Chair for her sorority, Alpha Xi Delta.
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