For families and elementary music teachers, suggestions for percussion instruments that require little or no money and minimum effort.
Making a musical instrument can be an exciting, rewarding, major project. But it doesn't have to be! Here are some suggestions for quick, cheap, and easy ways to make "musical instruments" for your family or students, for music classes, informal concerts, or just exploration. If you need some inspiration to get into the right spirit, I strongly recommend watching a video of a performance by "Stomp," for example
Stomp Plungers or
Stomp Kitchen . If you would like even more ideas on making your own instruments,
The Mudcat Cafe had many good, relatively easy suggestions as of this writing. In fact many books and websites include suggestions for homemade instruments, ranging from the very simple, to elaborate projects that can produce impressive instruments. The suggestions below fall in the "very simple" category.
Body percussion
- Hand claps
- Hand rubs
- Finger snaps
- Foot stomps
- Foot shuffles
- Knee or thigh slaps
- Chest, tummy, and shoulder slaps
- Tongue clicks - see how many different sounds you can make this way!
- Finger flicks against a cheek - again, you can get very different sounds depending on what you are doing with your mouth
Drumsticks - different drumsticks or beaters will give the same "instrument" many different sounds.
- Hands, fingers, thumbs
- Sticks, pens, pencils, rulers
- Short lengths of dowel or bamboo
- For a "brushed percussion" sound, use a kitchen basting brush, a scrubbing brush, a large, stiff paint brush, or wire brush
- Spoons
Beaters - secure one of the following onto the end of a stick, a pencil, or a short length of 1/2" dowel.
- A cork
- A large wooden bead
- Wrap many rubber bands around one end of the stick
- A rubber ball or "superball"
- Wrap one end of the stick, or wrap the bead or ball, with yarn or string
- Wrap felt or cloth around the end of the stick, or around the bead or ball
Drums - real drums (instruments in which you beat on a thin, taut membrane) are quite sophisticated, difficult-to-construct instruments. here are some easy stand-ins.
- Empty plastic milk jugs
- Upside-down pails, buckets, basins, or large cans
- Empty plastic tubs (like margarine or ice cream tubs) with the lids on - usually, the bigger the tub, the better.
- Lid or bottom (or both) of a large, empty coffee can
- A sheet of canvas, plastic, plastic wrap, plastic bag, rubber, wrapping paper, waxed paper, or poster board stretched very taut over the lip of a wooden bowl or a clay flowerpot, held in place by strong tape, heavy rubber bands, or strong cord. Most "drums" made in this way will be much more delicate than real drums.
- The bottom of an empty cylindrical oatmeal box
- Don't forget the traditional favorite: pots and pans
- Two of any of these in different sizes is a set of bongos
Fillers for shakers - different fillers can make very different sounds. some will last better than others, and some will be messier to work with than others. you may want to seal your shakers once you have made them.
- Dry rice, noodles, or beans
- Unpopped popcorn
- Beads or sequins of any size (different sizes and kinds will make different sounds)
- Nuts or seeds
- Pebbles
- Sand or salt
- Bottle caps (If you can make holes in the bottle caps you can also string them together to make rattles or tambourines.)
