VERY SIMPLE XYLOPHONE - GREAT FOR KID'S MUSIC PROJECT

I am continually amazed at the creativity of the children/craft planners at Michigan's 
truly excellent "Wheatland Music Festival". This idea is theirs, not mine, and is a good 
one, presented at the recent (2006) festival. I'm taking the liberty of presenting it here 
on my webpage.



Each child (adults too) would assemble this very neat & on-pitch "xylophone" & keep it.

They had the electrical conduit tubing already cut to appropriate length & pitch, marked 
as to pitch and bundled with a rubber band.  Also cut to length were the PVC tubing pieces, 
made from 1/2" PVC (NOT CPVC) available at any hardware store.  90 degree PVC elbows were 
provided. No glue was used - everything was just force fit & stayed put nicely.

All one had to do was assemble the PVC tubing/elbow frame, add the rubber bands and insert 
the conduit tubing as shown. Hammers were craft-store 3/4" diameter wooden balls affixed 
to a short length of dowel rod.

The construction is obvious upon looking at the diagram. Here are the dimensions:


Cut the 1/2" PVC tubing to these lengths
The two longer members = 12 & 3/8"
The two shorter members = 11 & 3/8"

The electrical conduit tubing (available at any hardware store tubing) measures 
5/8" inside diameter and 11/16" outside diameter
Cut the conduit to these dimensions (in millimeters):
G - (Lowest pitch) = 258 mm
A - 245 mm
B - 230.5 mm
C - 223 mm
D - 210.5 mm
E - 199 mm
F#- 186.5 mm
G - (Highest pitch) = 181.5 mm

Cut the "spacers" from a length of styrofoam floaties aka noodles kids 
use when swimming.

Add four rubber bands, four 90 degree elbows and that's it!

One idea for improvement would be to add an auxiliary low note (a tone below),
that way the thing would be able to play any bagpipe tune, If you did this, 
the two longer PVC frame members might have to be lengthened slightly to 
accomodate the extra pipe.
Click here to access Wheatland Music Organization's website

Click here to access my webpage

Dennis Havlena - Cheboygan, Michigan