Make a bottle xylophone
Making your own musical instrument is a fun project for kids of all ages and this bottle xylophone is really simple to make. You can also use your bottle xylophone to experiment with sound and how it changes depending on how much water you add to the bottles.
What you will need:
Small glass bottles
Strong string or twine
Duct tape
Water
2 Sticks
Large jug of water or small watering can
What you need to do:
First you will need to collect some small glass bottles from your recycling bin. Different shapes or colours is fine.
If the bottles still have their labels on, put them in some warm soapy water for an hour or so, which will help you get them off. When the bottles have been soaked, use a washing up brush to scrape off the labels and leave them to dry.
Tie a long piece of string or twine tightly around the neck of each of your bottles, making sure you tie underneath a ridge.
Wrap some duct tape around where the twine was tied to help keep the twine in place and stop it from slipping above the ridge.
Find somewhere suitable to hang your bottles, such as a tree branch or climbing frame. Tie each bottle with a secure knot making sure there is a bit of space between the bottles.
If you don’t have anywhere suitable to hang your bottles, you can also place them in a row on a flat surface. The sound will be different but you will still be able to notice differences in pitch.
Use a jug or small watering can to pour water into your bottles. Add a different amount of water to each of your bottles.
Now you can play your bottle xylophone! Grab your sticks and gently tap the side of each bottle.
If you want to, you can tune the bottles by adding and subtracting water from the bottles. You will notice, the more water there is in a bottle, the lower the note (lower pitch) and the less water there is in the bottle, the higher the note (higher pitch).
Author: Denise Hope, home educating mum of two boys