Earth Saver Chimes by Jacob S. My instrument is titled "Earth Saver Chimes" because everything used to build them was either recycled from something else of used up bits of things we had left around our house. My whole family helped in some way in the building of my chimes. I wanted to make chimes and my dad helped me make a plan from my idea. We went out to the garage and found a rack from my dad's business which we turned into the frame for my chimes by taking off the sides and the back. I came up with the idea to use the pipe from our basketball hoop (which got knocked down by the snowplow guy!) for the chimes. My dad showed me how to measure and I figured out how many chimes we could fit and how long they would be. After that my dad cut the pipe with his saw. After the cutting was done I laid the pipes out biggest to smallest. My dad helped me drill the holes in the pipes so they could be hung from the frame. My dad helped me with tying the chimes so that they would be sure to stay put.

My brother Zack helped me get a bucket of soapy water and a rag so that I could wash the chimes before they got their paint job. Instead of buying paint just for this project, I decided to use the bits of spray paint that my dad had in the garage, left over from other projects. The painting was done by me, with supervision by my dad. We laid out papers so that there would be no paint all over the garage. My chimes turned out so big that my dad and brother had to load them into my mom's Jeep to get them to school! To produce sound from my chimes, the person who is playing them must strike them with an object such as a mallet or a stick. The chimes could be pushed together and they would make a noise when they bump into each other but the sound wouldn't be music, it would be more like noise. You can change the dynamics of the sound the chimes produce by striking the chime softer or harder, making louder or quieter sounds. The chimes are different lengths making the pitch different. The longer the chime the lower the pitch, and the shorter the chime the higher the pitch. The timbre of my instrument is a tingling sound.