Toy Instruments

[Laurence Finston]

This is a metallophone, called by its manufacturer a "Pipephone". I found it at a junk store about 15 years ago for between 2 and 5 €. I would have been very happy to keep it for myself, but a good friend had small children and I passed it on to them.

Now they've outgrown it, I finally got it back and I'm just delighted!

I'm told the carton still exists but the stand has gone missing and the mallets are long gone.

I bought some new mallets yesterday and it sounds great! I like the lower octave better than the upper 1 1/2 octaves. I plan on making a YouTube video or at least a recording and uploading it somewhere; either on YouTube or on my website, but I won't be able to do anything about this soon.

I don't think the stand is a great loss since it doesn't provide any additional resonance. I may build a resonating chamber. However, the first item on the agenda is to make pipes for the missing sharps and flats.

The pipes appear to be made of ordinary aluminum tubing that you can get at building supply stores. I saw some just the other day. It should be possible to determine the needed lengths by measuring the tubes and determining the ration of the lengths between semitones. Fine tuning can then be done by filing.

I have all the tools I need for this, but not all of them are unpacked and space is a problem. I may tackle it, anyway.