Homemade Musical Toys

All you need for a homemade guitar is a shoebox, paper bag, tubing and a rubber band.

Guitar

Materials and Tools:

shoebox or tissue box
brown paper bag
scissors
craft knife
fax-paper rolls
hot glue
pencil or chopstick
4 rubber bands of various widths

Steps:

1. Wrap a shoebox or tissue box with a brown paper bag.

2. Draw wavy lines to represent the wood grain.

3. Cut a hole in the center with a craft knife.

Figure A

4. On one end of the box, make three or four Xs with the knife. On one end of the box, make three or four Xs with the knife.

5. Insert fax-paper rolls into the Xs. Glue into place.

Figure B

6. Hot-glue a pencil or chopstick in the right length above and below the hole.

7. Position four rubber bands of various thickness around the box and between the rolls. (Wider rubber bands have a deeper tone when plucked than narrow ones.)

Dulcimer

Materials and Tools:

tissue box
paint
chopstick
4 rubber bands of various widths

Figure C

Steps:

1. Paint a tissue box.

2. Glue a chopstick above and below the hole in the box.

3. Place four rubber bands of various thickness around the length of the box so that they cross the hole.

Fill bottles with various amounts of colored water to use as a xylophone.

Xylophone

Materials and Tools:

6 to 8 glass bottles
food coloring
chopsticks

Steps:

1. Gather six to eight glass bottles. If you want more control of pitch, they should all be the same shape.

2. Fill the bottles with various colors of water from full to almost empty. The more water a bottle holds, the deeper the tone. Play the instrument with chopsticks.
Variation

3. Instead of filling bottles with water, simply hang empty bottles of varying sizes from a clothes-drying rack so that they hang free. Each bottle will have a different tone. You can line them up from low to high, if desired.