My instrument is a guitar. The name
of my guitar is Jen Ben. My teacher, Mrs. Scaro,
logged onto the Internet and printed out a
picture of an instrument for me. That's how I
got the idea for making my guitar. I chose to
make a string instrument because I like guitars.
My guitar looks very colorful and it sounds like
a "pluck". The strings on my guitar are
different pitches. I can change the volume by
plucking it hard or soft.
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The materials I used to make my
guitar are a square oil can, detergent, two
pieces of wood, an awl, a rasp, paint, shelf
paper, nails, golf tees, and four guitar
strings. The tools I used to make it are a
hammer, a saw, sandpaper, a material knife, and
a wood drill. I found my pieces of wood and
tools in my garage. I got the paint and the oil
can in my basement. I bought the guitar strings
at a music store. The shelf paper I used on my
guitar looked like real guitar wood, in my
opinion. The wood on the guitar is smooth, but a
little rough in places. The oil can smells like
turpentine.
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I made my instrument by
taking an oil can and drilling holes into it.
After that I attached a piece of wood to the
oil can and painted the piece of wood. I put
the shelf paper on the oil can and attached
the guitar strings to the wood handle.
It was very hard to make this
instrument. My parents helped me with a lot
of things. They helped me with cutting the
wood, cleaning the oil can, and attaching the
guitar, making the holes in the oil can, and
sawing the wood.
One problem I had in making this
instrument was cleaning the oil can. The
turpentine inside wouldn't come out and it
smelled. The solution was that I put a paper
towel in the spout of the oil can and left it
upside down for a few minutes so the paper
towel would absorb the turpentine.
Another problem I had was putting the
guitar strings on the wood. The guitar
strings wouldn't stay on the guitar and the
golf tees holding the guitar strings kept on
breaking because the guitar strings were so
tight. The solution was to put the tees
upside down so I could adjust the strings to
be tightened without the tees
breaking.
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I play my
instrument by plucking the strings of the
guitar. I can strum them all at once or
one at a time. I can change the pitch of
the guitar strings by moving my hand up
and down the neck of the guitar. The
closer I move my hand up to where I pluck
the guitar strings, the higher the pitch
gets. The farther I move my hand from
where I pluck the guitar strings, the
lower the pitch gets. I can change the
volume by plucking the strings gently or
plucking the strings hard.
Another way to play my
instrument is to play it upside down.
It looks very awkward upside down. It
is usually hard for most people to play
my guitar because, instead of the pitch
being lowest to highest from the top of
the guitar, it's highest to lowest.
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I
had fun making this instrument. It
was challenging and took a lot of
hard work. I learned how to make a
guitar and that you can make a
really good guitar out of junk. This
project taught me how to use
different materials and how to
change my plans to make things work.
I learned a lot from making my
guitar.
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