Bill Nye
Bill Nye: Tube Kazoo
This tutorial from Bill Nye explains how to make a kazoo out of a cardboard tube.
Other
Blokfluitkids
Colorful, interactive Dutch language website that introduces students to recorders and wooden flutes. It shows how the flutes are made and the different sounds they make. Site also activities that let students play along (practice...
Exploratorium
Exploratorium: Science Snacks: Straw Oboe
Try making this straw oboe to explore the resonance characteristics of the sound it makes.
Other
Huayu World: Global Chinese Language and Culture Center
Good resource for exploring Chinese culture and language. Learn about Taiwanese lantern riddles, Chinese folklore, clothing, poetry and fables, papercutting, Chinese New Year, and Chinese festival and every-day cooking. Multimedia makes...
Michigan Reach Out
Michigan Reach Out!: Making a Shoe Box Guitar
This site provides an experiment where students create a guitar to discover what variables will change sound.
Michigan Reach Out
Michigan Reach Out!: Drums (Sounds Like Science)
This site is provided for by Michigan Reach Out. Students experiment with the variables of force, pitch and volume after making a drum.
California State University
Island Maracas
A great multicultural art instructional activity that also connects visual art to music. Pupils create a set of paper mache maracas emphasizing rhythm and expression in the painting details. Upon completion students will have the...
Maryland Science Center
Maryland Science Center: Diy Kazoo [Pdf]
Instructions for how to make a kazoo. Also explains how the vibrations from humming create the sound.
Other
Rhythm Web: Coffee Can Drums
Learn how to make a percussion instrument using a coffee can. This site provides instructions for making the coffee can drum. You can also listen to audio clips of coffee can drums being played in various ways.
Other
Dayton Art Institute an African Slit Gong
Art and music are very much related. In fact, the African culture often times designed fun looking instruments like the gong on this website. Includes directions on how to make your own gong.
Hunkins Experiments
Hunkin's Experiments: Sound Experiments
Hunkin's Experiments is a group of simple cartoon illustrations of scientific principles. Some would work well in the classroom, but others have little value beyond entertaining students. All of the projects are easy to do. This group of...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Gears Go Round!
Music boxes, bicycles, and clocks all have one thing in common: GEARS. You might say that gears make the world turn, since they are in so many mechanical instruments. How do they work and how do you know which gears to use? Find out in...
Exploratorium
Exploratorium: Science Snacks: Coffee Can Cuica
In this activity students will use the engineering design process to make a musical instrument called a cuica. This musical instrument uses "stick-and-slip" vibrations to make the sound.
Exploratorium
Exploratorium: Science Snacks: Head Harp
Want to make music with your head? In this experiment, create a musical instrument by wrapping a string around your head.
Museum of Science
Museum of Science and Industry: Online Science: Activities: Sound Like a Turkey
An activity where students investigate the sounds created by the friction of fingers moving along a wet string.