Sounds of Music B

[ScienceOlympian]

If I built a marimba, could I make the bars out of plywood? Or will it sound really bad?

[aljones]

To be honest, this is something I've never been quite sure of. It's not hard to stay in the allowable range though... I mean, it's a couple octaves, so what reasons would you really have for going outside that range? Better not to risk it.

well ww already have the song picked out and it is not adjustable so I guess well have to pick another song unless someone's sure it can have notes outside of it

[zyzzyva980]

Every song is adjustable. That's the entire point of arranging your own piece for the second song- you adjust it to best fit your musical instruments. The simplest fix there is just taking the notes that are out of the range up or down an octave. It's not going to ruin the song.

If I built a marimba, could I make the bars out of plywood? Or will it sound really bad?

The key is to get good resonance. I don't have much experience in wood building events so I can't tell you which type of wood is best for this. (We used aluminum pipes). It's worth a shot, just to test out. Try other types of wood too (unless Infinity Flat or someone with more wood experience comes around and gives you a better answer...) You never know what serendipitous result may occur.

[Je suis K]

Last year my partner made a marimba and did not use plywood. I really doubt plywood wood work but you can try it... I used plywood to make a cello and it worked well, because it was so thin and easy to cut. Good luck!

[ScienceOlympian]

I don't think that it would work, but I do not have access to real wood and plywood is significantly cheaper. I know that in professional instruments, manufacturers don't use plywood because it doesn't vibrate every well, so I don't know if I should use it.
I am tempted to build a flute but I am worried that I will get penalized for building such a popular instrument. It is inexpensive to build and everything, so is it worth the less points? Or should I spend more time and money for a violin?

[Je suis K]

Is your team going to reimburse you? If you don't get reimbursed decide what you are willing to spend and go from there. I wouldn't build a cello, because the strings are roughly $60-80 each. Personally I wouldn't spend so much money, but that is my opinion.

[ScienceOlympian]

They are not going to reimburse me, so I do not know what to do. Cellos are far too expensive, marimbas are expensive, violins are expensive, and flute is the only one that is cheap that I know of. UGH THIS IS SO HARDZ.

[Je suis K]

I think a flute is fine...If it helps that is what I'm making. I've found lots of designs using PVC pipes which I'm assuming are cheap. If your school has a wood-shop check there to see if you could use any left over materials or ask local cabinet shops. We found a cabinet shop that was very helpful and was practically essential for making the cello. Ask your fellow team mates if they have any tools you could use or if one of their parents knows how to use power tools and is willing to help.

[zyzzyva980]

Obviously, as with any building event, cost will come into play. But that's really where you get to put your creativity and ingenuity on display. There are many many many ways to cut down on the cost, even if it's shaving off pennies at a time- that adds up. And I think part of what endeared our team to the judges the year we won second at nationals was how utterly ridiculous our materials seemed before we began to play. We had these ten-foot aluminum pipes that we got from a hardware store, and we hung them on a clothes rack with shower clips and played them with rubber mallets made from the anti-sway bars from a Ford Taurus. Yep.

Your instrument doesn't have to be "sexy" to do well- this event is as much about inventiveness as it is about craftsmanship. As an engineer in the real world, you'd have to deal with a budget too, and you'd have to use that creativity to find a way to cut costs without sacrificing the integrity of whatever it is you're going to build.

And like Je suis K suggests, that may involve going around and scavenging at places you may never plan on going to, like cabinet shops. It could involve figurative (or literal) dumpster diving. But it'll keep costs down, and that's important.

There is nothing wrong with doing a flute. From what I understand, that's your primary instrument anyway. Go for it- that gives you a built-in advantage over all of the other flutes in the competition. But throw something unique in there too to separate your instrument from the pack. I can't tell you what that might be because that's something you'll have to come up with yourself to make it truly unique. (But for an example, my first year we made our flute out of copper instead of PVC, which everyone else was doing. The copper secret's out, though, so you'll have to come up with a little better than that.)

[ali941]

They are not going to reimburse me, so I do not know what to do. Cellos are far too expensive, marimbas are expensive, violins are expensive, and flute is the only one that is cheap that I know of. UGH THIS IS SO HARDZ.

A few suggestions:
1. If your team won't reimburse you, go straight to the student council or the board. When I did this, I not only managed to cover the cost of building a marimba, but the money also paid for supplies for other events and we had enough left over to take a field trip to the Exploratorium. Prepare a short summary of who you are and why you need the money, why you have a good purpose, and get ready to answer questions. Most student councils don't care why you want the money, so it should be easy enough.
2. If you just want the cheapest materials possible, make a brass instrument. Our B team made a cardboard trombone last year. It was a rubber ring for a mouthpiece, and two tubes that functioned as a slide. It cost around a dollar. I've also seen teams do a water-beaker marimba of sorts, where you have water in beakers and each beaker is a different pitch. I think they used spoons for mallets.

Hope that helps.