Posts tagged "musical instrument"

How can I reuse or recycle nylon guitar/ukulele strings?

ukeleleJohn was restringing his ukulele (not a euphemism) the other day when he flung the old strings at me, saying “how can I recycle this?” It was a good question ;)

We’ve covered metal guitar strings on the site before but not their nylon counterparts. A lot of the suggestions for the metal ones were jewellery related and I guess that would work here – the thinner ones will be perfect for covering with beads.

Also, like everything else even vaguely string-related in the house, one of the strings immediately became a cat toy – John tied a metal hoop to one end that, as far as the cats were concerned, then jiggled about of its own accord. OMG! HAUNTED HOOP! KILL! KILL! KILL!

Any other suggestions? We get four strings every time John changed them and we know loads of other people who play the uke too so it would be great to reuse them all up.

(By the way, John and I started a fun, silly project late last year, singing Wikipedia articles accompanied by a ukelele: Ukepedia. We’ve not had time to record all the ones we’ve come up with but a few of our friends have – the “Bedfordshire Clanger” and “List of WCW Hardcore Champions” videos are my favourites :) )

Recycling things to make music

Drumming workshopAs I mentioned earlier in the month, it’s the ‘Recycle Into Art’ week of workshops in Liverpool this week.

The event kicked off with a musical event at St Luke’s Church – aka the Bombed Out Church – on Friday afternoon. It was led by Urban Strawberry Lunch, a music/arts group who make instruments out of waste items. Some of them are literally drums – old plastic drums of different sizes which are hit with sticks to produce sounds – while others are considerably more tuneful.

Unfortunately, we arrived in Liverpool a bit later than we’d hoped and had to get some lunch so couldn’t really take part in the workshop in the church gardens but those who were involved looked to be having fun (above).

Church bells made from old car wheelsWe did get to have a play on the other USL instruments inside the former church itself though – mostly notable an instrument made out of old hollow piping (different lengths made different notes that sounded like a bass synthesizer) and the “bells” in the church tower – made from suspended old car wheel rims. We gave the “bells” a really good bashing, leaving my ears ringing afterwards too ;)

Unfortunately none of the videos we made did justice to the sound of the “bells” – it was very cool and loud – but here’s John playing the pipe instrument thing:

How can I reuse or recycle … old “broken” harmonicas?

HarmonicasIf you live anywhere near Dewsbury, West Yorks (in the UK) and like music, real ale and sausages, you should head down to the pub in the train station this weekend for their “Beer, Bangers and Blues” festival.

How does this link to recycling, you might be saying to yourself? Well, John’s “acoustic folk-country-scifi-gospel fusion band” The Gillroyd Parade are playing on Saturday and like all good acoustic folk-country-scifi-gospel fusion bands, harmonicas are used quite liberally throughout the set.

I didn’t know until recently that harmonicas have a limited life span. I just assumed they were like trumpets or whatever – with care they’ll last for years and years – but the reeds inside harmonicas get warped quite easily (particularly when the player bends notes) and once they’re damaged, that’s pretty much it unless you want to play bum notes.

HarmonicasSo what can be done with these harps once they’re no longer fit for their musical role? Any practical or arty ideas? I’ve included the second picture to show off the individual inside bits of the instrument, which I guess could be used separated.

(Photos by cralize for Wikimedia Commons)