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There is a portion of the rubric dedicated to originality and creativity of the instruments.

We made a trumpet, and it sounds pretty good (placed 1st at States).
I know this event usually runs on some kind of cycle, and this year should have a string instrument. Does anyone have some kind of conformation on this?

Based on previous years, the most likely combination is string and percussion. However, there is no confirmation until the final rules come out.

zyzzyva98 wrote:Based on previous years, the most likely combination is string and percussion. However, there is no confirmation until the final rules come out.

Darn... I play a wind instrument, so it's been more comfortable for me as far as making wind instruments go. I don't mind trying to build a string instrument though. Does anyone have any preferences? (flute player = partial )

zyzzyva98 wrote:Based on previous years, the most likely combination is string and percussion. However, there is no confirmation until the final rules come out.

Shoot, we don't have an orchestra at our school. Nobody knows how to play a string instrument.

There's always guitar...plenty of people know how to play that, even if they're not in orchestra. And I suppose you could always try a hammered dulcimer-like instrument.

I like the sound of the shofar though it is a holy sign (horn) of lord Ram. The shofar is featured most prominently in the Rosh Hashanah morning services.

Previously sounds of music did not ban/limit the types of instruments other than penalizing teams with 2 instruments of the same kind. I suspect they banned string instruments this year because string and percussion instruments are both really easy to get to cover the whole range so the vast majority of teams did them and it got old fast. From what I heard very few teams (even at the national level) were able to cover the full range with wind instruments which makes it very easy to distinguish the top teams from the rest.
If I were involved in making rules for next year (and I'm not) I would make only string and wind because 99 percent of teams either had a tubaphone or some sort of xylophone/marimba (I made two marimbas in my time) and simply their extremely easy to get to cover the full range while wind instruments are not easy at all.

It doesn't really run on a rotation (this year was the first time they ever picked what kind of instrument) so next year is kind of unpredictable. Even though they saw a whole lot of 8-hole flutes at nats this year, I really doubt they'll get rid of wind instruments. Honestly I wouldn't be too surprised if they got rid of the instrument specification to allow all 3. They wouldn't have gotten rid of strings if they didn't plan on bringing it back at some point, but I doubt they would ever get rid of winds because they're the most difficult and leave room for the most creativity. I think after seeing the lack of creativity this year they might allow all types so that theres more variety next year.

I think that they try, more so recently, to prevent teams from re-using devices from one year to the next. They don't want a great device from the previous year to carry a slacking team the next year. I think that is why they were so specific about what instruments you had to build last year, it allows them to block out those types of instruments this year. My guess would be that it could be any type of instrument other than a low percussion or a high wind. I'd kind of like to see low string and high percussion.