Bamboo is a useful plant to make musical instruments. Its structure is a series of pipes separated by nodes. Breaking the walls of nodes will make one compartment of the pipe longer. Naturally, it becomes the material for designing wind instruments. The most famous example would be Japanese shakuhachi flute. Also, bamboo is easy to work with knife. We can cut and carve it to make not only winds, but percussion and even the bodies of strings.
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| A
bamboo xylophone created by artists for Forest Labo this year. |
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| Ditto. A different version |
Creating instruments for pros requires skills, of course, and it’s not within the scope of my blog. Instead, I tell you today my adventure to create an instrument for a complete novice like me. My teacher was artists from the Forest Labo. It’s a kind of percussion with guiro. Let me tell you how to. First, create a main body from bamboo. For any craft with bamboo trunks, we start by removing wax oil covering them by (1) drying it for about a month after felling, (2) then, boil it or scorch the surface with a handheld burner. The procedure removes water and oil from the trunk and makes the material more durable. The dirt on the surface of bamboo can be removed simultaneously when we wipe with dry towels the coming up oil over the material. After the treatment, dry the material completely. It takes about a month in Yokohama during autumn and winter. Here are the bamboo Forest Labo people prepared for us.
It’s roughly 25cm or so long, and 5cm inner diameter. To decorate it later, it would be better to cut both sides of a node diagonally, keeping the wall inside. I think simple straight cut of bamboo trunk could be OK as well, but the sound will be different. Next, make 4 holes at the point 2cm from the center, or if you use a node one hole for each sideof a node. The position of holes are like
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| Inside |
We next make guiro. Mark 9 lines on a bamboo surface with a pen and make shallow cuts on the lines with a rasp. Depending on the length of the bamboo, number of cuts would be larger or smaller.
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| Marked |
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| Start making guiro |
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| Done! |
For a final touch, we decorate the instrument with colorful strings of jute. First stick a double-sided tape around the node of the bamboo. Peel the surface side of the tape and paste 4 decoration strings on the tape. The main body of the instrument is completed. It’s easy.
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| Taping the bamboo |
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| Decoration |
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| Done |
Then, we make a drumstick. Cut a joint mat of foam flooring in the form of below photo, and fasten a wood square stick, 26cm long and 1cm wide of its side, with relatively strong wire. We have to make it sure they are attached firmly. Next, cover the other side of the stick with a plastic tube cut for about 1.5cm long. This tube must fit tightly to the stick. It could be tricky to accomplish this procedure. After casing the other end, wrap the point with a double-sided tape, then wind a jute string tightly around. Securing both ends of the string with instant glue, and a drumstick for this bamboo instrument is done.
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| Securely fastened joint mat |
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| Plastic tubes for another end |
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| In
order to secure the tube, we slightly sharpen the stick with a rasp. |
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| Secured tube is now covered with a double-sided tape. |
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| The
end wrapped with jute string. The string is applied super-glue. |
As a sort of afterthought, we can make a stand for this (maybe) percussion with the remaining foam flooring like this. Each part is simply glued.
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| My stand |
To make sounds, we can use either side of the stick. With the mat, we hit the mouths of the instrument and make dry sounds. With the string-wrapped mallet, we hit the body of the instrument, which creates more echoing sound inside the pipe. The drumstick can be a stick for guiro. After making it, I felt joy. I hit and scratched the instrument until I reached the bus stop with another adult passengers waiting for the bus to come … They saw me in a puzzling face. “What is she doing?" Being an adult is boring.
If you find a problem in the greenery of north-half of Yokohama, please make contact with
Office for the Park Greeneries in the North
北部公園緑地事務所
Yokohama Municipal Government Green Environment Bureau
横浜市みどり創造局
Phone: 045-353-1166
FAX：045-352-3086
email: mk-hokubukoen@city.yokohama.lg.jp
