Fine Tuning a Marimba Bar

You can fine tune any bar with a surform and an app tuner.

A "surform" is a cheese grater for wood, very effective for shaping and shaving. It's available at hardware stores or online for $10 or so. It's use is non-electric, and not NOISY, and it does not create enormous dust like electric sanders.

In this video I show briefly how to fine tune a slightly flat or really sharp bar with a surform. So this is how to keep ALL your bars in tune, unless one goes REALLY flat, in which case more drastic steps are required. 

This process leaves the bottom of your bar with scrape or cut marks, but that wont effect the sound quality. Wear gloves and experiment carefully with an out of tune bar and you and your students can keep your instruments in perfect tune for less than $10. If you have ever grated cheese, you can do this!

Here's the item: STANLEY SURFORM # 21-297

Questions? This is a simple skill ALL marimba owners can benefit from.

http://youtu.be/LVGCXgUu4i4

The Click Song

Here is a traditional song from South Africa that you will want to try. I transcribed it from a performance by the Arboretum Primary School marimba group at the 2009 National Marimba Festival in South Africa. This is NOT my arrangement, but my transcription from this video of the group's rousing performance:

 

The Click Song by Arboretum Primary School

And here is my transcription. Be patient for the first half minute or so, it's a screen capture of the Finale MIDI playback:

The Click Song transcribed

AND .... here is the pdf of the transcription: 

The Click Song.pdf

Finally, background on this great traditional South African song:

The_Click_Song, WIKIPEDIA 

March is Moving Month

With wife Patty in charge of Music Education at Western Washington University since Fall, it's time for me to get moved out of our Bothell digs and into a new shop space in Bellingham, Washington, USA. So I'm taking the month of March off to de-commision the house and home we raised our young 'uns in. We're liquidating on Craigslist, making runs to the dump and hauling the remainders north.

Come April I'll be working out of the NE corner of this building. Exact location will remain undisclosed for now, to avoid the job seeking hordes and Chamber of Commerce recruiters.

Alas, after 17 years, we've fallen short of the Bothell vision, with its motto: "For a Day, For A Lifetime". But we're already the ideal citizens of Bellingham, known the world over as "The City of Subdued Excitement".

NO, this is NOT "Ice, Ice, Baby"!

I was testing out a new bass a few days ago and absentmindedly played a famous bass riff that sounds great on a bass marimba. So I went ahead and arranged this classic, one that everyone is familiar with. I think it would sound sound pretty good under the mallets of a solid group.

Each soprano part can be split into two parts, as will be evident in the score. Let me know if you have any suggestions for improving this arrangement, I am not as clever on the details perhaps as you who actually direct malleteers. Of course it could be sliced and diced and extended in any number of ways.

Just click on this page and it will open a window with the music playing and scrolling by:

Click to Play!

Let me know if you want a pdf copy of this. 
Of course it is a copywritten song, so the payoff for performing it should be other than monetary.

Brent Holl, (of Orff fame and Beatin' Path Publications) must like this arrangement, he jazzed up my Finale file into a nice mp3 recording:

http://www.bournemarimbas.com/under%20pressure.mp3

This Just In from Sequim

Here is Five Acre School Explorer Class (older group) playing Isu Tauya Pano arranged by Walt Hampton at Sequim Prairie Grange, in Washington State, Jan. 26, 2013. Directed by Rosie Sharpe. Good Stuff!

Five Acre School Explorer Class

Minne M for sale - used but good as new

A customer from 5 years ago is wanting to sell her barely used Minnie M. She's asking $300 for it, not sure if that is negotiable or not, but the instrument looks to be in fine shape, with mallets. If you are interested, let me know at tom@bournemarimbas.com and I will provide her email.

New from Bourne Labs

Just finished this bass, with inclined bars. It's designed so the bars do not fly off when playing, and it doesn't require the top restraining cord that is standard on most my marimbas. PLUS, the bars are easily removed for inserting F#/Bb bars. Come visit my booth at the NW MENC convention in Portland to see how our in-house engineer (that's me) achieved this.

Advantages: bars are easier to strike, and the player does not have to be as elevated, in fact a tall person needs no stool at all.  Also, since the long bars are slanted, the instrument is several inches narrower, and can fit through passageways that the regular bass wouldn't without removing bars.

Disadvantages: I suspect kids actually PREFER lording over the group, perched higher up on a stool.

Either way, it is fun to have this new design and this is available as an alternative to the traditional Big Bass.

Crafting Your Marimba

And here I proudly present a new video from Seattle videographer Izzy Corey documenting the building and delivery (by me!) of a 2 octave soprano "Lowrider" marimba. This is about 20 minutes long and will be of interest to young malleteers, teachers, parents - anyone who is curious about how these instruments are created.

 
Crafting Your Marimba from Tom Bourne on Vimeo.

Because the world needs MORE marimba builders, the follow-up to this video will be a longer version intended for folks planning to build their own marimba. No doubt that crafty craftsman you know can view this shorter version and get a good start, and the forthcoming longer version will be the "director's cut", narrated by me and covering all the details of marimba building start to finish. Stay tuned!

Baffling Baffles

I believe I've built over 200 of my Aussie model over the years, and as a box resonator instrument covering three and a half octaves, it took alot of experimenting with the box dimensions to get a fairly consistent presence of sound across the entire range. Finally I stumbled upon the sizings that seem to produce a good strong sound for every note. But there are many variables at play in musical instruments and I introduced a new one with a recent batch of 3 Aussies, incorporating 1/4" plywood for the sides instead of the customary 3/8". Makes for a lighter instrument to tote around a classroom, and with that thinner ply vibrating as it does, these new Aussies might just be a tad louder than the thicker-walled variety. The middle range is especially strong.

Building all three boxes with the same dimensions and materials and bar wood, you might expect them to all sound the same. Hah! Aussie #3, it turns out, has a decidedly weaker sounding Low C, something I dont like to have in an instrument where the key of C is king. So I switched out the low c bar from one model to the next. Same result, Aussie #3 is definitely weaker on that important root tone.

So I did what any dissatisfied Aussie builder can do, which is to measure out the inside dimensions at around the low G note and fashion a baffle that can be inserted to produce an entirely different vibrational profile. Low and behold, the Aussie #3 Low C comes through loud and clear now, and sounds on par with her sister instruments. Hmmm.... baffling.......

My Idea for Orff-Style Bass Bars

A couple things have always bothered me re: the traditional Orff bass bars that are commonly available. The bars are really narrow compared to the box they sit on, and each tone you buy sets at a different height. So a collection of these bass bars seems like several different random single note instruments, with the notes so far apart, both sideways and up/down-wise. Poor young malleteers!

So here are my Bourne Marimbas Bass Bars with double-wide American ash bars perched on boxes that share the same height - set them up in a row and you have .... ONE INSTRUMENT! Music teacher Bart Roderick of Yakima, WA has a full set of these now, he seems to like them.

My first generation of these bass bars left me unconvinced - I couldn't seem to dial in a consistent resonance on the boxes. But I do believe I've solved those problems, so these are available if you yearn for bass bars that are created equal, united side by side to form a more perfect bass marimba!

The Box Baritone

I haven't made one of these in several years, but they always impress me. It's got a good solid sound and rolls and stores upright like my Lowriders and Aussies. So it takes up much less space during its downtime (uptime?) than the regular Baritone, and stands lower to the ground as well. A good low end sound for the really young kids to belly up to. It's the Baritoniest!

The bars are made of ash, which I have switched to on all my baritones.

note: All good things have wheels.

Here's something for late summer enjoyment while you sit in your lawnchair with a beverage. Avalon, written by Al Jolsen, Buddy DeSilva and Vincent Rose, played by me on my Yamaha Silent guitar, with the help of garageband.

http://www.bournemarimbas.com/twangbabies/avalon%20II.mp3

New Walt Hampton Music

It was a great week at Walt Hampton's Hot Marimba division of Will Schmid's World Music Drumming sessions in Seattle, with talented teachers from around the country (and world!) learning how to introduce marimbas into their classrooms. Several of the 28 teachers in the class already have marimba groups of their own, and there was a good mix of experience and some great performing at the culminating event on Friday.

Walt unveiled selections from his newly self-published collection "Son of Hot Marimba". Here's one example:

As you can see, grown-ups have as much fun banging on marimbas as youngsters. The group also learned this chestnut - great motion in this performance:



Here's another new Walt Hampton tune: "UFO".



Stay tuned for ordering info as Maestro Hampton's book becomes available.

Bourne Marimbas Feeds the Hungry Teachers of the World (Music Drumming Workshop)

We had a great cookout tonight for 50 attendees of the World Music Drumming workshop at beautiful Carceek Park in Shoreline, Washington. Bourne Marimbas provided the burgers and brats, and received favorable reviews on Tom's Mom's Baked Beans, such that a sharing of the secret recipe, upon her permission, is in order.

Tom's Mom's Baked Beans

• In large skillet or heavy pan, over medium heat, Cook 6 slices of thick sliced bacon until crisp Drain on paper towel and cut into about 1" pieces. 
• Leave about 3 TB grease in skillet. Chop about half a large sweet onion, and cook in same skilet in drippings until tender, stirring often. Then: 
• Add 3 TB brown sugar (I use light brown), stir and cook until this mixture carmelizes slightly. 
• Add about 2 TB ketchup and 1 TB yellow mustard and the bacon pieces. I like to keep some of the bacon to put on the top about 10 minutes before I take it from oven. 
• Add 2 large (16 oz.) cans pork and beans (I use Van Kamps) and heat well. 
•  Transfer to baking dish or pan and bake 1 hour in 350 degree oven or longer if it's too runny. 
• Let stand a bit before serving. 

Rose Bourne

Tom wielding tongs

Charlene Sutton wielding a marshmellow

from the Department of Bass Prettification...

Val Barton Ellett posted this shot at Facebook. Another breakthrough in Bass Decor!

The Big Picture

Here's a graphic I made many many years ago, still helpful in understanding the ranges of the instruments I offer:

The latest from Beatin' Path Publications:

Volume II from Eric Shopmeyer and Adrienne Leverette

http://woodenvoicesmarimbas.com/EShop%20Previews/index.html

Love Letter to Plywood

I use a good bit of plywood in my marimbas. Here's why:

Love Letter to Plywood. By Tom Sachs

Phil Onishi's Wired Musicians

A few years ago I built a set of instruments for music teacher Phil Onishi of Edmonds Washington. He surprised me with this gift: a wired malleteer playing a marimba styled after my Lowrider. When he's not teaching kids, Phil creates all sorts of jiggling, wirey musicians and is featured at:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/TotallyWiredArts?ref=pr_shop_more

totallywiredmusicians@gmail.com