Divided into four distinct, coherent sections, 'Making Gourd Musical Instruments: over 60 string, wind & percussion instruments & how to play them.' covers 'Idiophones',' Membranophones', 'Chordophones', and 'Aerophones'. Additionally, there is a six page 'Appendix' dedicated to 'Constructing a Xylophone', which includes forty-one pictures of the process. While not comprehensive in detail, the section is, nevertheless, quite interesting.
In the 'Idiophones' section (idio = self, phone = sound) Jim Widess and Ginger Summit explain that within this category "The body of the instrument itself is used to provide the initial vibration of the sound." Examples of sub-categories of idiophones are instruments which are 'hit (simple)', 'stamped', 'shaken', 'knocked together', 'scraped', 'rubbed together', 'plucked', or 'hit (complex)'. Specific instruments include bowls, gongs, water drums, shakeres, rattles, rain sticks, sistrums, clappers, tambourines, rasps (guiro), mbiras (thumb pianos), and xylophones. Several playing methods and projects are presented.
'Membranophones' include most drums found in most cultures. As one would expect, the classification is directly related to the use of a stretched 'membrane'. As the text specifies, "the traditional material for creating the initial vibration is a membrane", such as the skins of cow, goat, pig, deer, and rabbit. This section concentrates on drums, but it should be noted that a kazoo is also classified as a membranophone.
In the most extensive section of 'Making Gourd Musical Instruments: over 60 string, wind & percussion instruments & how to play them.', 'Chordophones', ("instruments for which the sound source is a vibrating string") Jim Widess and Ginger Summit include details for several projects; including a Musical Bow, Lyre, Spike Fiddle, Banjo with a membrane soundboard, and a Guitar with a solid wood soundboard.
Part 4 of Making Gourd Musical Instruments, 'Aerophones', covers instruments with which "the air is first set in motion, usually by blowing, which then hits an edge other surface.....thus creating an audible tone or basic pitch.....as well as distinctive overtones or harmonics.". Megaphones, flutes, horns, reeded instruments and didgeridoos, are all classified as aerophones.
144 pages. Paperback.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4027-4503-4
ISBN-10: 1-4027-4503-6
