Sound Designs by Reinhold Banek & Jon Scoville
SOUND DESIGNS is BACK IN PRINT!!! This book will show you how to make your own percussion instruments made of wood, wood and metal, metal, skin, plastic, and glass. For each instrument, there are clear instructions and precise measurements.
Content and Scope
Sound Designs is a comprehensive DIY guide for building musical instruments. The book shows "how to make your own percussion instruments made of wood, wood and metal, metal, skin, plastic, and glass" with "clear instructions and precise measurements" for each instrument.
The book teaches readers "how to build truly unique musical instruments, including oil drum gongs, thumb pianos, cowbells, tube drums, and willow whistles" with sources drawn "from cultures worldwide - from the Stone Age to the Space Age" playful description mentions being "ready to turn a home-grown gourd into a rattle" or "mambo to the sound of Latin maracas you made yourself from toilet tank floats".
Academic Resources
The book includes extensive scholarly apparatus with bibliography (pages 200-203) and discography (pages 203-205) indicating it was designed as both a practical manual and academic resource.
Philosophy and Approach
The book emphasizes accessibility and creativity, noting that the necessary materials "can be purchased easily, or simply found in nature or a junkyard". This reflects the DIY ethos of the late 1970s/early 1980s when alternative and world music cultures were gaining mainstream attention.
Sound Designs represents an important bridge between ethnomusicology and practical instrument making, offering both cultural context and hands-on construction techniques for a wide variety of percussion instruments from around the world.
USER REVIEWS FROM AMAZON:
This is a great book with lots of creative designs. It should be put back into print.
A very useful and practical handbook for beginning instrument builders such as I. The book is organized into six sections; wood, wood and metal, metal, skin, plastic, and glass. Mostly percussion designs, but also includes a few simple string instruments and an organ pipe. Instructions and designs for 50 instruments, some traditional but mostly original variations by the authors. Also includes frequency charts, some discussion of just intonation, a great bibliography for further reading and a list of suppliers for things like gourds and bamboo.
This book is a treasure. A feast for the inventor and musician in all of us. I've made the thumb piano out of a sardine can, cedar shake and tines of a rake. I have also made the FUNNELODEON, several in fact over the years and I cannot tell you how people respond to it. I would love to meet the person who invented this wonderful object. If you love to tinker and explore, or never thought you could play an instrument, this book is full of projects that anyone can make and play.
The book was published back in the 80's. I don't know if materials are as readily available in junk yards given the demand for scrap metal these days. Sample projects: glass or redwood xylophone with pvc resonator tubes, thumb piano (kalimba) made from sardine can (large oval type found in ethnic food aisle). Instructions are crystal clear, and the authors go into detail about wood types and qualities that yield best results. I plan to make good use of this book, and definitely recommend it to the primitive craftsman/musicians everywhere.