Explorers

The Explorers created their own musical instruments in September 2008. The best part is that the instruments barely cost anything at all, and when they wear out it only takes a few minutes to make new ones!

We started with plain old plastic “bendy straws,” which when bought in bulk cost less than a penny apiece. The Explorers tried blowing through these straws, and quickly discovered that the effort creates…well, no sound at all, actually. Something is missing.

That something is what is known by musicians as a “reed.” The whole secret to creating sound waves is vibration, and the straw is too rigid to vibrate. In a musical instrument that is blown through, this is solved with a reed—a flat bit of wood or other material that is contained in the mouthpiece. When a musician blows through the instrument, the reed vibrates and creates waves in the air traveling through the instrument—in other words, sound waves.

The Explorers created their own reeds from the ends of the straws. They started by biting down for a couple of minutes on the end of the straw to make a flat section about an inch and a half long. Then they used scissors to trim off the tip. When they were done, the ends of the straws looked from above like a pencil tip with the very end squared off, and from the side they looked sort of like an alligator’s jaws.

At this point, the “opposite” tips at one end of the straw were free to vibrate. Now when the Explorers placed these tips in their mouths and blew, they created noises—some whistles, some toots, and some fairly rude-sounding noises—but noises nonetheless. The last step was to then turn those noises into different notes.

•  
• 1 of 2
• ››

This was accomplished two ways. First, by sticking another straw into the far end of the first and then moving it in and out while blowing, the students could vary the length of the sound wave that was created and thus change the notes. This is essentially what happens with a trombone. Second, by carefully using a hole punch they made finger holes—covering up and opening these provided another way of making musical notes. These instruments were the equivalent of playing something like a clarinet.

Some of the students’ instruments worked better than others, and a few failed to create any sound at all—but like we said, it took very little time to make replacements for the duds. And one of the best things (especially from the viewpoint of their parents, no doubt) is that the Explorers could then make as many instruments at home as they pleased!