I’m wondering about what type of wood works well for the keys.
What angle the two crossbars should be at.
How far apart the keys should be.
I hope to make the xylophone no more than 2’ long.
I roughed up one fast today and was playing with different angles and I reach the conclusion trial and error was not a great idea.
Rosewood’s pretty much the standard.
I saw one in ebony and some lighter wood that was pretty, but I thought the sound was sort of brittle compared to a regular one. Although I have never really been fond of xylophones because of some stupid travelog show on early sunday mornings that was all xylophone soft jazz - it was not cartoons and I hated the show, and it sort of tainted me for xylophones =(
Whatever you do, DON’T play
“Those Tender Young Charms” - if you miss that 11th note, the whole thing’ll explode…
(yes, now you know the name of the exploding xylophone tune)
Here’s a little write-up from a guy who made one from red oak, it has good information on tuning the bars.
**Mack **that is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for and red oak is much easier to get hold of then rose wood, especially for a first try. Thank you so much.
usedtob, I’ll have to get the sheet music for that if my first trial goes well.
I need to build a small one first and see how that goes. My experiments with scrap I had in my basement shop yielded 3 good keys and knowledge I needed some details and better wood.