If you’re looking to unleash your creativity, or just trying to find an idea for your kid’s school project, take a look at our list of the 10 easiest musical instruments to make at home.
Whether you want to spend some quality time with your little ones on a fun DIY project, or you would just like to be creative while you are having a vacation, making musical instruments can actually be very rewarding. There are tons of unique homemade instruments that you can try out, like the Popsicle Stick Kalimba and a guitar made out of cardboard boxes, or PVC Pipe Flutes. You can even craft homemade instruments with different pitches like making a homemade pan flute by cutting straws at different lengths. Or you can even go and craft something professional looking and something worthy of being in an actual orchestra, but that will require a lot of tools and machining skills, therefore, we will not be talking about those in this article.
Will be talking about musical instruments that are easy to make, and those that are made from recycled materials. If you looking for instructions on how to make musical instruments with recycled materials, then this article will certainly help you because we all need to do our part in helping the environment. Once you finish reading, you’ll be prepared to craft homemade wind and string instruments, like the cardboard guitar we previously mentioned or a disposable glove bagpipe, from stuff just lying around your house. We will also be covering how to make a homemade harmonica out of popsicle sticks and rubber bands in minutes.
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The easiest to make musical instruments at home, may not be the best substitute for the real thing, but they are certainly things you will enjoy making with your kids. Even if you have never taken on such a project, you will be able to craft some amazing looking and also functional musical instruments that are truly unique. The best part is, your kids will enjoy making these with you, and also enjoy playing their first melodies on them as well. Undertaking a DIY project is a fun way to spend a rainy day with your kids, and if you are looking for a fun and creative DIY idea, you just cannot go wrong with musical instruments. The skill to play musical instruments goes a long way, so if you help your kids develop musical skills early on, they will have no problem playing the 7 Hardest Instruments to Learn to Play in a Marching Band if they choose to do so later in life.
In order to come up with this awesome list, we sought help from a lot of websites that specialize in DIY musical instruments. We filtered out the easiest instruments to make, and then put them on a list to share with our readers. The websites we consulted for this list are, Redtri, How Wee Learn, and play Sing Laugh. We also employed the help of Google’s search engine for the purposes of making this list. We ranked the list based on the number of items needed to make each instrument, the fewer items each instrument needs, the higher it has been placed on the list.
Without further ado, let’s get our list of 10 easiest musical instruments to make at home started.
10. Popsicle Stick Kalimba
Items Needed: 6, Popsicle sticks, wooden blocks, paper glue, wood glue, Paper plates, Scissors
You will need 2 paper plates, two wooden blocks, 5-6 Popsicle sticks and glue and scissors to be able to make the Popsicle Stick Kalimba. The process is fairly simple. You just need to glue the two paper plates together, cut a hole in the center of one of the plates, then glue one block of wood at the base of the hole and put the Popsicle sticks in arrangement where the center pieces are longer than the edges. Glue the other block of wood on top of the first one sandwiching the Popsicle sticks, and voila you have your Popsicle Stick Kalimba. Of course you are free to customize your Popsicle Stick Kalimba to your hearts content with stickers, glitters and drawings.
9. PVC Pipe Flute
Items Needed: 6, PVC pipe, hand drill, wine cork, hand saw, sand paper, the template for cutting holes
For the next one on our list of the easiest musical instruments to make at home you are going to need some PVC pipe preferably about 15 to 18 inches long. The standard thickness for such flutes is around 3 -4 millimeters, as it will be easier to cut holes in them. You will also need a wine bottle cork in order to seal off the edges. You can download a detailed template, and print it out to make things easier for you to work on and that’s really all you need. Do not forget to sand the rough edges down with some sand paper.
8. Cardboard Guitar
Items Needed: 6, Cardboard box, rubber bands, straws, masking/scotch tape, scissors, pencil
Next in line on our list of easiest musical instruments to make at home are Guitars that are cool, no matter what they are made of. For this particular cardboard guitar, you will need a cereal box, a roll of masking tape a few rubber bands for the strings and a few straws to make the bridge. The cereal box will form the body of the guitar and the masking tape will hold it all together and that’s it — you will have a cardboard guitar to play with your kids. If you are feeling creative, you can then play around with the design a little bit as well, to give it a unique look.
7. Drinking Straw Pan Flute
Items Needed: 5, Straws, masking/scotch tape, pliers, lighter, scissors
For our number 7 on the list of easiest musical instruments to make at home all you need is a bunch of drinking straws (about 8 or more), and the idea is to change the pitch of the flute by varying the size of the vibration chambers. You can do that by cutting the drinking straws at different lengths and reducing the size of the opening by squeezing them with pliers and heating them for a brief period. After you are done cutting and closing the ends of the straws, all you need to do is just line them up in the shape of a pan flute formation and use some sort of adhesive tape to bind the whole arrangement together.
6. Homemade Harmonica
Items Needed: 5, Popsicle sticks, paper, rubber bands, toothpicks, scissors
We are half way through our list of 10 easiest musical instruments to make at home, and at number 5 we have the homemade Harmonica, which is a really simple and fun musical instrument to make at home. To make Harmonica, you will need a couple of Popsicle sticks, rubber bands, a sheet of paper, a toothpick, and tape. You need to cut the paper as thick as the Popsicle sticks you are using, then place the paper in between the two sticks, wrap the rubber bands on both edges, and slide the toothpicks in between the two Popsicle sticks.
5. Easter Egg Maracas
Items Needed: 4, Spoons, Easter eggs, masking/scotch tape, rice
Maracas are a traditional musical instrument found in Cuba and in Latin American countries. It is really easy to make, and the method we are going to use today simplifies the process even further. If you have a bunch of Easter eggs lying around, then you already have the main component ready. All you need to do now is fill the eggs with rice, and glue them shut. Also grab hold of a pair of spoons and place the egg inside the spoons and wrap tape around it.
4. Kazoo
Items Needed: 4, paper, rubber band, wax paper, scissors
If you know how to hum, you can play kazoo. It is one of the simplest musical instruments to play and the method we are going to show you here will make it one of the most easiest musical instruments to make as well. To make a kazoo at home, all you need is a sheet of paper, a sheet of wax paper, rubber bands and some sort of adhesive tape. The first step is to make the body of the kazoo and you can do that by rolling the sheet of regular paper into a cylinder. Then you need to cover one end with the wax paper and wrap the rubber band around so that the wax paper does not come lose. Once you’re finished, just hum away through the open end of the cylinder.
3. Homemade French Horn
Items Needed: 4, a coil of garden/perforated pipe, scotch/masking tape, a funnel, scissors/knife
All you need is just a bit of corrugated piping, (like the ones used under the kitchen sink or hose pipe found in the garden will work too) and a simple funnel. You just have to arrange the piping in an overlapping circular shape and tape it all down together. Next put the funnel on one end, and blow away at the other end with your mouth. If you are teaching your kids the technique to play the horn, this can be a really interesting DIY project to do with them. Let’s see what’s next on our easiest musical instruments to make at home list.
2. Water Xylophone
Items Needed: 3, Glasses, water color, spoons
You do not even have to make anything in order to play a water Xylophone. All you need is a few glasses of similar make and some water. You line the glasses up, fill them with water at varying levels and tune them by adding or subtracting water if needed. Then just tap the glasses with a pair of sticks or wooden/metal spoons to produce beautiful melodies. You can also add water soluble colors to make it look very pretty as well.
1. The Wrench Xylophone
Items Needed: 2, Wrench set, screwdrivers or nails
Making a musical instrument could not be easier than a Wrench Xylophone, however, you will need a wrench set in order to make this. Lay the wrenches on a flat surface, or use two or more wooden bridges to suspend them off the ground a little bit, and that’s it. Now all you need is a pair of screwdrivers or something similar to strike the wrenches and enjoy the sweet sounding melody.
This wraps it up for our list of the easiest musical instruments to make at home.
