John Langstaff - Making Music: From Tambourines to Rainsticks to Dandelion Trumpets, Walnut Castanets to Shepherds Pipes to an Abundance of Homemade Drums, Here Is a Joyful, Quirky Assortment of Good Sounds from

Projects listed below in red type = how to make instruments.

Projects in black type = how to make music with them.

From Ann Sayre Wiseman

Whenever I hear that music, art, and creativity are being cut from the school budget, that learning by doing is being eliminated from the curriculum, I write books to show that creativity is the best and most long-lasting way to learn about life, facts, truths, how things are made, and how things work.

Creativity does not require a special budget or special teachers; it requires imagination, common sense, and resourcefulness. Time to explore should be a basic part of all teaching and learning. When the hands can make something that works, the body is delighted, the mind is validated, and immediately you become a teacher yourself who can pass the skill on to someone else who wants to learn.

Making musical instruments is an important part of creative thinking, and nature has given us amazing sounds to work with. You can find rhythm and sound everywhere: the wind blowing through trees and whistling over holes, thunder in the sky, waves on the sand, rivers rushing by, rain drumming the roof. Singing, humming, slapping, clapping, tapping wonderful sounds, a scale of notes, free of charge.

We have made instruments that copy these natural sounds. A gourd strung with a sinew or vine makes a crying sound. Anything can be used as a drum. Blowing through reeds makes different notes.

When I was working at the Boston Childrens Museum I took a group of kids to the dump with a wooden spoon in each hand to collect good sounds. Car parts were the best. We then went to our kitchens and tapped pots, pans, everything we could hang from strings. We blew into pipes and reeds. We collected sounds for our DAM GOOD DUMP BAND and you can too. Hang your sounds from a fence, a shelf, a rack, or the branches of a tree. Invite your friends to come and make music, compose a symphony, write a score.

John Langstaff will show you how to make music and rhythm, how to syncopate, how to work together in a group and make an orchestra, how to conduct, and how to write a score. John has been teaching for years and has written many books of songs and musical games. Here are his suggestions for making music with these instruments.

From John Langstaff

The little girl stood thinking, motion-less, in the middle of the room, facing a semicircle of children holding improvised instruments, and contemplated how she might begin the music.

Looking over her attentive orchestra, she slowly raised her arm and suddenly pointed to one player. The whirring, metallic sound of an eggbeater began quietly, growing slightly in volume as the conductors other hand beckoned pitched notes plucked at random from a kalimba dozens of little notes shimmering over the low drone. Eventually she introduced a different texture, seeds in a large gourd shaken to a furious crescendo. Next she coolly pointed to a child clasping two large pot lids, which he clashed together as primitive cymbals. Now the young conductor fervently waved her arms, urging the players on and indicating the entrance of the remaining musicians.

At this point there was a density of sound in which I could hear a xylophone, notes of a recorder, and the pattern of a single drum making a continuous sound underneath it all. As the cacophony rose to a climax, the conductor held up one hand to signal the clanging, dominating pot lids to cease. Suddenly she held both hands above her head, focusing her players, and then her arms shot down, outstretched, to cut off the music abruptly.

The silence was stunning but only for a moment. To my surprise, the young conductor-composers hand flew out to cue in again the original first instruments. I heard the low growling drone of the eggbeater joined by the sparkling notes of the kalimba, just the two quiet instruments continuing on and on... until she wiped them out with a pass of her hand to end the piece.

I was fascinated. Her music had ended as it had started. Here was a very young composer fashioning a score right on the spot, as she conducted her orchestra of homemade instruments for the first time dealing with the same problems Beethoven had. How to begin? Where to go and how to get there? How to end?

This is the essence of making music together, and it can be experienced using homemade instruments, as described in this book. Children have a natural affinity to rhythm, and this book offers ways to get them immediately involved. As they become more and more engaged in improvising with their instruments, they learn about basic musical elements such as tempo, dynamics, phrasing, and polyrhythms. As they create their own compositions, they naturally learn how to shape them. Presented effectively, this music making is like a fascinating game to children and to adults as well. Entire families can have musical fun together. Lets begin!

Kitchen Things That Ring

Look around the kitchen, hang utensils from a string, tap them with a pencil or a fork to see if they ring.

Make a gong by hanging a metal tray or a resonant garbage can lid. Strike it with a soft .

Rest a fork on the plastic lid of an empty coffee can ping the prongs with your fingernails to hear the fork sing.

Scrapers & Rasps

Look around the kitchen

Strum a metal pancake flipper.