Musical Inventions: DIY Instruments to Toot, Tap, Crank, Strum, Pluck, and Switch On (Make)

Grear projects!

Humans have been making music using homemade instruments since long before recorded history. This fun how-to book blends music, science, common household items and tools, and instructions on how to create everything from a zucchini flute to a homemade music box and an eerie-sounding theremin using three old AM radios positioned close together. The book includes numerous full-color photographs and illustrations, plus step-by-step construction details and interesting vignettes on historical music inventors, such as Benjamin Franklin and Robert Moog (creator of the Moog Synthesizer). Some of the projects are as simple as folding a single sheet of paper to make a popper, and others are more complicated and require using some simple electronics parts and procedures. "Musical Inventions" is well-written, smoothly structured and reflects the author's writing experience. She has written several other Make books, including "Edible Inventions," "Paper Inventions," and "Making Simple Robots." She also has written books on robotics and video games for another publisher.(My thanks to O'Reilly Media for providing an advance reading copy for review.)

I absolutely love MAKE - their books, their website, the blogs, MAKER Faires, all of it. They offer so many ways to DIY almost anything, and this book on musical inventions is no exception. One of the best things about MAKE is that they present projects for every skill level, and provide clear and easy to follow instructions. Many of the creations in this book are made with items that most people already have on hand at home or that are easy to obtain. I really like that they don't expect the reader to go out and spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on tools or supplies that will be used for only one small project. MAKE doesn't expect every reader/DIYer to be master craftsmen. One of the best parts about creating a MAKE project is that it can be a little wonky looking, a tad less than 100% perfect, but in the end (almost all the time unless it's delicate electronics) what you create still works like it is supposed to.This MAKE book also gives the reader some history and science behind each musical project. For our family, these MAKE books are a fun way to sneak in learning while having fun. The kids don't get bored or tune out, and they remember what they have learned while working on each project far better than when reading from a textbook. How can you not have fun while making an ocarina (a type of flute) from a cucumber? While reading the instructions, you'll pick up a ton of random facts as well. Did you know the the most common ocarina is called a sweet potato ocarina because that's what it looks like? Or that MIDI means "musical instrument digital interface? What about that rainstick aren't made from actual wood, but from dried out cactus branches?We've purchased several of these books before, have a subscription to MAKE, and have gone to the MAKER Faires. The MAKE and MAKER Faire philosophy is simple - invention, creativity, learning, and resourcefulness for any one of any age of any background in a pursuit to make communities and the world a better place. They believe everyone is a Maker, and with books like these to provide the inspiration, it's hard not to become one! The Edible Inventions and Paper Inventions books are two of my favorites, and younger kids will especially enjoy the Edible Inventions. If you are looking for family activities that result in some of the coolest creations you have ever seen or made, are a teacher, home school your kids, run a summer camp, head up a Boy/Girl Scout troop, need ideas for a rainy afternoon, or just want to try something new, add this MAKE book and the others to your library.

The DIY builds in here are great for STEAM education, classrooms and homeschooling purposes and there is a lot of great educational information in here about music in general to whet you appetite. However, the section on building electronic DIY instruments may as well be a shopping list. It largely recommends buying LittleBits (usually $99 to $160 for kits) or MakeyMakeys (also around $50) to build things. While the paper circuits and some mild circuit bending are a notable exception, I am surprised the author didn't take the time to teach people any actual audio circuitry (simple oscillators are cheap and a very quick build). The instruments in this book are cute but are hardly useful for a serious instrument builder and i am pretty disappointed with the electronics section - more research could have been done here rather than suggest sales of STEAM learning kits to people (which is surprising since most of the rest of this book can be made on a fairly humble budget or household items). For diving deeper into that, I recommend Nicolas Collins' "Handmade Electronic Music."I did build the washtub bass however - which was a blast.

What a wonderful book! This book starts with a scientific introduction to what sound and music are. From there, it goes on to give simple instructions for how to make all sorts of instruments, for the most part, from ordinary household items. There are directions for everything from homemade music boxes, drums, singing bowls, and stringed instruments to bullroarers, double reeds, theremins, synthesizers, radios, and even a record player! The difficulty of the various instruments varies greatly from very simple to more difficult. The directions are easy to follow and have clear, full color photographs that help clarify them. Boxes clearly list the items needed to make each instrument. The instruments are organized into chapters by type, and there is a handy index as well. There are useful boxes scattered throughout the text. Some provide interesting, related websites. Others contain short biographies of inventors of each type of instrument. Still other boxes provide safety warnings. This is undoubtedly the definitive book for those who wish to make their own music!I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.