XYLOPHONE - DIY - a quick guide
How to make a xylophone
(en norsk versjon av teksten vil bli lagt ut senere)
1. First, you need to decide which notes you want on your xylophone. These can be any notes but it is better if they all sound pleasant when played in any order. This is because it gives you more options to what you can play together once the xylophone is finished.
2. Next, you have to choose which kind of wood it will be made out of. Any long piece of wood might do, but it is wise to have enough planks of the same kind – same thickness and width- because it will make a more even sound on all the different notes, and because it will be easier to guess how long the next tone willl be when you cut them to length. Try playing with different hard or soft clubs or mallets to hear the different tone qualities.
3. Now, to ensure you are going to do the right thing to the material, you have to find out what note the wood is currently at when you hit it. This can be done by using a tuner. All you need to do is hit the wood with a beater whilst you are holding it in the air. To get the best possible sound, you need to hold the wood approximately a quarter of the way down. The tuner will then reveal the note it is creating and depending on whether it is too high or too low from the note you are trying to make, you will have to do something different.
4. If the note is too low, you need to saw off some of the wood from the end of the plank. The further away from the note you are, the more wood you need to saw off.
5. However, if the note is too high, you have to sand away some of the wood from underneath the wood in the middle.
6. Once you have done this once, you retune the plank and repeat either of the processes until it is perfect.
7. Then, you have to do exactly the same for all the other notes you chose.
8.The next step is attaching the wood together to create the xylophone appearance. This is done by getting two strips of foam. The notes will lie resting across the foam – a bit in from the end. You then have to pierce a hole all the way through the foam. I used one blade of a pair of scissors and pushed it through which worked fairly well.
9.When two holes have been made with the width of the wood between them, you need to cut a bit of string. The length of the string will differ depending on the thickness of your foam. The string needs to be threaded up through the hole on the left and down through the hole on the right. The way I found easiest was putting the string around a screwdriver and threading the screwdriver through which brought the string with it. You should be left with both of the free ends underneath the foam.
10.This needs to be done at each end of where each note will lay.
11.Then you can put the notes into place. This will be under the string and lying next to each other with one end on each piece of foam. To get the best sound, you need to again make sure the foam is about a quarter of the way from the edge of the wood. To get it absolutely right, you can just test all different places before deciding on one.
12.If you then carefully turn the whole thing upside-down, it will be easy to tie the free ends of string together with the free end next to it. Ensure they are tied tight so the wood doesn’t slip out from under the string whilst you are playing.
13.Once you have turned it back over, all you need to do is test it!
This xylophone is the source for a DSP piece:
http://musikkverksted.no/lytt/lily3rdmix/
LILY ABRAM – 18/6-2010
