Found Instruments: Ice, Garbage Cans, Sports Equipment, Vegetables, Cars...and more!

Not all instruments have a place in the band or orchestra. Some of them are called found instruments, which basically means that if you can pick something up and make a sound on it...congratulations, you've found an instrument!

Not all found instruments fit nicely into the woodwind/brass/string/percussion categories, but they fit into even broader instrument categories. These categories are the following:

• Idiophone (produces sound through vibration, like claves, guiro, xylophone, maracas, etc.)
• Membranophone (produces sound by vibrating a stretched membrane, like that of a drum head; examples include drums and kazoos)
• Chordophone (produces sound by vibrating one or more strings; includes piano, violin, banjo, etc.)
• Aerophone (produces sound using a vibrating column of air, like flute, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, whip, slide whistle, etc.)
• Electrophone (produces sound electronically, like the clavinova (the piano in the classroom) or theremin) 

Now for the cool part: seeing found instruments in action!

Ice of Lake Baikal in Siberia (a super-cold, very large part of Russia)

Stomp!

Basketballs and shoes

Vegetables

All sorts of things...not necessarily all "found," but quite complex (link to the creative process for the music video and all the planning that went into it - super neat!)

Household objects
Please note that this is a Swedish comedy film with trained actors. Do not treat your electrical appliances like this. Do not use other people's toothbrushes. Do not spray all of the hairspray and perfume you can get your hands on at once. Be safe. This has been a public service announcement from the music room.

Created from garbage in a landfill

This video is especially neat because not all areas of the world have the money for music education, and this is one way that a town in Paraguay has devised to combat this issue.

If you want to earn a DRUM card, watch at least 2 of these videos and tell me what you thought about them in at least 3-5 sentences using proper spelling and grammar (as well as proper punctuation and capitalization!).