Audible Technology

Abstract

Musical instruments of all kinds have a fascinating and continuing attraction as school design-and-make projects, a fact easy to understand when one considers the range of artistic sophistication covered by the title ";musical instrument"; and the depth or simplicity of art and craft skills that can be employed both in their construction and operation.

A ";musical instrument"; made in the school workshop, art-room, or laboratory, might be a set of roughly-tuned chime-bars or a complete quartet of two violins, viola or cello; it could be a row of partially-filled test-tubes to blow across or a complex electronic keyboard instrument; a worn-out harmonium restored to working order or a full-scale organ in the school hall, chapel, or music-room. All these examples are things I have seen successfully completed in schools during the last few years and, remarkably, the most popular seems also to be the most skilful and ambitious - the construction (or reconstruction) of a real organ, usually obtained (in part, at least) from a redundant church.