Make Your Own Musical Instruments!
Use everyday items from around your house! Here are some books to guide you, it’s all right under your fingertips…
How to Make Flibbers, etc. Robert Lopshire. Beginner Books, 1964. Box bass, etc.
Make Your Own Musical Instruments. Margaret McLean. Lerner, 1988. Washtub bass, etc.
Making and Playing Homemade Instruments. Taught by Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer. Homespun Video, 1989. Oatmeal box banjo, etc.
Making Music: 6 Instruments You Can Create. Eddie Herschel Oates. Harper Collins, 1995. Garden hose trumpet, etc.
Foxfire Book of Toys and Games: Reminiscences and Instructions from Appalachia. Edited by Linda Garland Page. E. P. Dutton, 1985.
Making Musical Instruments. Bebecca Anders. Lerner, 1975. One-string banjo, etc.
Homemade Instruments. By Dallas Cline. Oak Publications, 1976. Clothespin dancers, Limber-Jim, etc.
Making Music. By Ann Sayre Wiseman and John Langstaff. Storey Kids, 2003. Paper bags, body rhythms, musical exercises, etc.
Music. By Ting and Neil Morris. Franklin Watts, 1993. Shoe box guitar, etc.
Music from Strings. By Josephine Paker. Millbrook, 1992. Rubber-band harp
Musical Instruments. By Meryl Doney. Franklin Watts, 1995. Oil can guitar, etc.
My First Music Book. By Helen Drew. Dorling Kindersley, 1993. Banjo, etc.
Hidden Stories In Plants. By Anne Pellowski. Macmillan, 1990. Musical instruments to make from plants!
Pioneer Sampler. By Barbara Greenwood. Ticknor and Fields, 1975. A homemade fiddle
Rocket Science: 50 Flying, Floating, Flipping, Spinning Gadgets Kids Create Themselves. By Jim Wiese. Wiley, 1995. Tin can howler, straw whistle, cottage cheese guitar, etc.
Steve Caney’s Toy Book. By Steve Caney. Workman, 1972. Dancing men, etc.
You Can Teach Yourself To Make Music with Homemade Instruments. By Mark Nelson. Mel Bay, 1995.
Some of these books may be out of print, but all are available at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.