Music has no language and it binds us all, especially children would love music and would also love to try their hand in musical instruments. Here are some good ideas for making musical instruments at home with available resources.
Musical Instrument Crafts
Here is a list of some musical instruments that can be made at home easily.
Tin can drums: Tin cans are easy to obtain. They can be easily found in most homes. For this craft, you’d need a tin can with its lid intact. After you find such cans, make sure that you paint or color them appropriately and let them dry. After this you can make sounds by striking it with things such as pencils, strong twigs, etc.
Source: Pinterest
Tin can drums with balloon: You can easily find tin cans laying at home. You can use these to make a drums set which can include two or more of these drums. All you need to do is to collect as many tin cans as you can. First paint the cans that you’d want to make drums and then take a balloon and cut it halfway across. This needs to be placed tightly on the can. Glue it to the can and tightly wrap it with a ribbon or broad glue tape. This will ensure that the balloon layer doesn’t come off.
Source: Parent Map
Drums with different plastic containers: Alternatively, drums can be made with different plastic containers or tumblers that can be found at home. Arrange them in an order and enjoy the different sounds that each container makes.
Source: Modern Parents Messy Kids
Rainstick: Rainstick is a simple musical instrument that is much fun to make and much more fun to play with. All it requires is a long cardboard tube, some toothpicks, pieces of cardboard to seal the tube and a handful of rice or wheat or any other grains. Take the cardboard tube and in a pattern pierce it with toothpicks. If the tooth picks are not strong enough make holes in the tube and insert the toothpicks. While making the holes, make sure that you don’t make large but small holes. After inserting all the toothpicks, close one end of the tube with a cardboard piece and seal it off with glue. Let it dry for few hours. Now pour in the grains and seal the other end as well. Now, whenever you turn the tube upside down the grains falling down will strike the toothpicks and create a sound similar to rain.
Source: Pinterest
Easter Egg Maracas: If you have any plastic Easter eggs at home laying around, you can use them to make Maracas. All you need to is to take those Easter eggs, few plastic spoons and adhesive tape. After filling up the Easter eggs with rice, close and seal them with tape. Now, take two plastic spoons for each Easter egg and place the egg in between the spoons and seal it with the tape. Now, shake them to make the Maracas sound.
Source: Whats Up Fagans
Strummies: You can make these strummies with cardboard boxes and some rubber bands or strings found at home. All you need to do is to take the lids of those boxes and place the rubberbands stretched. These stretched rubber bands will make some good sounds.
Source: Teach Preschool
Flute with Drinking Straws: Take some drinking straws and cut each of the straws to different lengths. Now, take each of the straws and stick them to one another according to their sizes, starting with the longest straw to the shortest straw. Blow the flute and enjoy some great music.
Source: Lushome
Homemade Tambourine: This homemade tambourine can be made with simple things at home which include soda bottle caps. As you shake the tambourine, the caps will strike each other making a great sound.
Source: Red Ted Art
Bottlecap Noisemakers: Make some noisemakers with bottle caps. All you need to do is to collect bottle caps, long pieces of cardboard and some glue. Stick the caps on either ends of the cardboard pieces. Now, bend the cardboard pieces and strike the caps against one another.
Source: Red Ted Art
Homemade Guitar: Here’s a homemade guitar for your Rockstar at home. All you need are a cardboard box, few rubber band strings and a cardboard pipe. First stick the cardboard pipe to the box and then place the strings on it. And play the guitar.
Source: Busy Bee Kids Crafts
Homemade Tambourine with Jingle Bells: You can easily make a homemade tambourine with jingle bells attached to it. All you need are few jingle bells and paper plate. On the edge of the paper plate, make holes so that the strings of jingle bells can pass through and make some noise.
Source: Craft Box
Coconut Shell Noisemakers: If you happen to have any coconut shells left at home, don’t throw them away, just yet. You can use them to make a pair of noisemakers. All you need to do is to take two pieces of the shell. Make sure that the two pieces have those three holes on them. Otherwise, you could drill a pair of holes in it. Run a string through them and while holding two shells try making sound by striking them.
Source: Two Daloo
Rattle Drum: To make this rattle drum, you’ll either need a cardboard sheet cut into a circle, few wool strings and mid-sized buttons or bead. Instead of cardboard, you can also use a circular plastic thing like a lid. Tie the threads to both the sides of the plastic lid and on the other ends, tie the buttons. Now, make a handle to it by sticking a straight twig or pencil.
Source: Pink Stripey Socks
Handmade Harmonica: For this craft, you’ll need two or more popsicle sticks, 3 rubber bands (2 regular sized and 1 broad), 2 strips of paper and adhesive tape. Keep the popsicle sticks on top of one another and wrap the two pieces of paper on each side of the sticks and apply tape so that they are almost sealed. Now, place the broad rubber band on the popsicle sticks lengthwise and wrap the rubber band on either side with the other two bands. Now, the harmonica is ready to be played.
Source: Mom To 2 Posh Lil Divas
Ankle Bells: You can make a pair of ankle bells for your child with simple things at home. All you need are some jingle bells, few strips of cloth, two pieces of Velcro or hooks. All you need to do is to stitch the bells to the cloth at various places. If you have pieces of Velcro at home, stitch them to the cloth so that they can wrapped around your kid’s legs or you could stitch a pair of hooks and loops that equally serve the purpose. In the image below, the ankle bells are made from knitting wool, but that is a very tedious task and hence, we’ve opted for cloth model which is easy to make.
Source: Mini Eco
Tube Bells: Here’s a craft that you can make with cardboard tube and bells. On one end of the tube make some small holes to place the bells and secure the bells with the help of a thread. Please use a thick threat and number of loops to keep the bells secured properly.
Source: Mini Eco
Homemade Trumpet: For this craft you’ll need a tissue paper roll, thick paper and 3 buttons. Cut the thick paper into 2 funnel shaped pieces and glue them together. Now, attach the paper roll on the length of the paper from the inside. Stick the buttons on to a piece of cardboard paper and in turn stick the paper on to the paper roll.
Source: Preschool Crafts For Kids
Bird Rattle Craft: Here’s a craft that is similar to Maracas, but has a different kind of sound. For this craft, you’ll need a paper roll, popsicle sticks, masking tape and dry beans. Cover the toilet paper thoroughly with masking tape and insert the popsicle stick. Before closing both ends of the paper roll make sure that you put the beans inside it. And now after inserting the popsicle stick, secure it again with masking tape, so that it does not fall off. You could color it for a different look.
Source: DLKT Kids
Paper Cup Shakers: For this craft, you’ll need two paper cups or polystyrene cups, dried beans or rice and glue and tape. Pour the rice or the beans into one cup and close the cup with other cup and seal it either glue and / tape. Now, you can color it with various colors for some good looks.
Source: Activity Village
Tubaphone: Make a tubephone which is almost similar in looks to a bagpiper. But, this is different from a bagpiper in many respects. For this craft, you’ll need a plastic tube, a latex glove and a plastic straw. Tape the glow’s opening to the pipe. Pull the glove backwards and cut the tip off of the thumb. Insert the straw into the open thumb and seal with tape. Now, blow through the straw until the glove is all filled up with air and it starts escaping from the other end of the pipe.
Source: Developmental Community Music
Xylophone with Glasses: If you happen to have same kind or identical glasses, 5-6 in numbers, then arrange them in an order by filling them with water, starting from least amount of water to filling the glass full and see how each glass makes sound different to each other. Be careful to strike the glasses with a plastic or wooden spoon.
Source: One Little Project
