“That’s not REAL music,” whispered an elderly woman to her companion as they watched my friend play exotic drums. “He’s just making it up.”
Not only that, ladies, he made up the instruments. They were slit drums — oblong wooden boxes with slits on top that formed tuned bars. You’ll find slit drum designs, and other fanciful instruments, in this book. Musical instruments can be created out of almost anything, and making them up is the most exemplary music education there is, especially for kids. Many of the designs discussed here started out as simple folk instruments somewhere
