Creating Musical Instruments at Home

What a strange time this is. Due to all the uncertainty and excess time spent at home, you may be wondering what to do to pass time after watching everything on Netflix. Music is something that can be an engaging process alone or with others. Listening to music can bring people together, but engaging in a process of music making can make even deeper connections. It may be difficult to imagine at first, especially if you do not play or own any instruments. Today, we would like to encourage you all to make your own musical instruments and play them together! The creation of your own instruments can be therapeutic, as well as a fun activity to do with the whole family! Let’s get started.

Instruments can be created out of many common household objects. If you have any of the following objects, you can create music.

Anything can be an instrument with a bit of creativity! The easiest two kinds of instruments that can be created out of household materials are drums and shakers.

Drums

A drum can be any surface, hit with your hands or with another object. You can use wooden spoons to drum on pots and pans. Or, use sticks from outside to drum on different sized hard cover books for different sounds. Explore how the sound changes with each material. The large pot sounds different than the small pot. The plastic spoon has a different sound effect than the wooden spoon. Putting tin foil over one of the pots makes a completely new sound! Experiment to find sounds you like.

Shakers

Shakers tend to involve a container of some sort, like a box or bag, and many small objects inside. A box of uncooked rice, a bag of frozen peas, a box of legos, or a container of uncooked rice and beans can be a shaker! Experiment by filling the container with different items and listen to the differences. Take an empty toilet paper roll and tape over one opening completely. Then, partially fill the tube with something small, like beads, dry corn, dry rice, or anything else small and hard. Make sure there is enough room for them to move around when shook. Tape over the other opening so that nothing can fall out, and you’ve made your own shaker. You’ll find there are many different sounds that can be created, just by shaking!

Bells

If you would like to experiment with something more melodic, there are a few ways to make bell-like instruments. If you are extra careful, you can play glasses filled with different amounts of water with spoons—just be careful not to hit too hard! When you fill the glass with a lot of water, it will sound higher pitched. When the glass is filled with less water, it will sound lower pitched. You can experiment with different amounts of water in different glasses to create various notes to play an entire song. Add a few drops of food coloring in each glass for extra fun! If the glasses have a rounded opening, you can wet your finger and glide it along the edge to produce a ringing sound. This may take some time to get the hang of, but sounds beautiful once you develop the correct finger speed. Sometimes it is just easier to play them with spoons!

Guitars

You can also create your own guitar at home. You will need an empty tissue box and a few rubber bands. Stretch the rubber bands over the entire box, making sure they are stretched over the hole. You can pluck or strum the rubber bands like they are guitar strings. If you have different sized rubber bands, they will make different sounds. Rubber bands that are thick and loose will sound lower pitched. Rubber bands that are thin and stretched tight will sound higher pitched. You can tape or glue an empty paper towel roll to the end of the tissue box so it is shaped more like a guitar. You can strum all the “strings” together or play them each separately. See how many you can fit on one guitar!

Get Crafty!

Once you have made your instruments, it’s time to get crafty! This musical project can easily be turned into an arts and crafts day too. Use markers, paint, beads, sequins, yarn, glitter, anything to decorate your new instruments. Each member of the family can personalize the ones they made, or you can work together as a team to decorate each instrument. This works best on tissue boxes, toilet paper rolls, disposable food boxes, and other items that can be painted on without being ruined. If your instrument involves a pot or pan that you don’t want to be altered, you can wrap it in paper first, then decorate it!

Making Music Together

Once everyone has created and decorated their instruments, it is time to make some music! If you are unsure of where to start, begin by playing along to some of your favorite songs. You can help each other find the beat of the song and shake or drum along to create a more interactive and expressive experience than listening to the music alone. You can also improvise your own music! Begin with a steady beat. All instruments can play this beat together. Take turns “soloing” and being the featured player. You can take turns playing back and forth, almost like a musical conversation. This can work on various social skills such as turn taking, listening, eye contact, communication, and emotional expression. Experiment with playing soft and loud, fast and slow, low and high, and any other way you can.

 You can then explore representational improvisation. This is when you think of something, an idea, a person, a place, or a feeling, and play how you think it would sound on the instruments. For example, an excited song might sound really fast and loud, and a sad song would sound quiet and slow. A song about a rainstorm might start quiet making small raindrop pitter patter sounds, then grow louder as the storm begins, then get extra loud and boomy when the thunder hits, then slowly calm back down to a small drizzle. You can think about playing a song for each family member, exploring what they would sound like musically, and even writing lyrics to go along with it! Far away family members may really enjoy hearing a song about themselves and their family over video chat when they haven’t been able to see you in a while. A musical performance of a homemade song with homemade instruments is a special gift for those you love. Have fun!