The Marimba-making process continued this week at Pence Middle School in Dayton, VA. The students worked four days last week and again on Monday, carving and tuning the bars. Here a student watches Mr. Holl check a tone bar.
The frame is done, the tube resonators are mounted and the tone bars almost all finished.
As the students finish the bars they add their own unique signature to each bar that they worked on. The signing ceremony ended the students work on the bars.
As the bars are finished, they are mounted on the frame and tried out. Here Mrs. Hostetter mounts a bar and plays it after checking what students had worked on the bar.
The bars were packed up and returned to Mr. Holl's workshop to be prepared for the final tuning and finishing. Each bar was sanded, fine tuned for the last time, and then painted with two coats of polyurethane. Here's a picture of the first coat just finished.
*UPDATE* January 24, 2010
The new marimba at Pence Middle School is now finished. We had a little trouble with one of the bars that had warped about a quarter of an inch during the curing process. I've never had that happen before, but it was easily solved by getting a new bar made and replacing it.
The bars were delivered, mounted, and the lettering applied. Mrs. Hostetter is very proud of her new instrument. I'm looking forward to hearing the kids play it!
As the students finish the bars they add their own unique signature to each bar that they worked on. The signing ceremony ended the students work on the bars.
1 comment:
Hey Mr. Holl.This is Krissy Beck from when you taught at Stewart Middle '96-'98. I had no idea you were actually MAKING orff instruments...That is very cool. I think it's a great idea to actually let the kids help too. It's better that they know exactly how the instrument works, plus they can feel pride in knowing that they accomplished something that great. My daughter is in the 1st grade at Clymore and I'm sooo hoping that when she gets to Stewart Middle that she will also participate in the orff program.
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