The hardest part of this project was to make the actual instrument, which in my case is the mbira or thumb piano. I found it hard because it took way longer than I thought it would. It took me more than three days to make the instrument, mostly, because I had to paint each sound box and had to change the position of the metal strips. The different sizes of sound boxes were my independent variable. The position of the metal strips would affect the notes it was going to play and I had to make 5 distinct notes. The easiest part of this project was researching about the instrument and how it makes sounds. I actually found the researching quite fun and interesting.

Something that really helped me to build the instrument was watching videos of other people building it. I learned a lot of things from those videos. I learned the general ideas, the procedures of making the instrument and how to make notes. In the videos, they tell you kind of the background information of the instrument and also how it makes sounds. I didn’t really write down my plan to build the instrument, but I did know what to do and I had a list of things in mind. I felt that I took a bit long at building my instrument because I took three days to do that. I used recycled materials that I could find at home. I think the hardest part of building the instrument was the metal strips. The metal strips was made from bobby pins. When I tried to bend the bobby pins, it often broke in half and I had to restart with another one. Also, I had to experiment with the length and position of the bobby pins to make different notes and sounds.

I felt that my instrument turned out better than I expected it to be. My instrument did play 5 different distinct sounds and it did play a song. I tried to make the instrument as pretty as I could by painting it. I think the painting turned out okay. I think my instrument can withstand a long while of playing, since it didn’t fall apart from the time I made it, experimented on it and presented it to the class. However, I’m not sure if the amplitude of the instrument was loud enough. I did ask some of my friends if they had heard it when I presented, they said yes.

The mbira is a percussion instrument, but I don’t play any percussion instrument, except playing xylophones at school. I built the mbira (thumb piano) because I found the instrument very interesting. I first saw this instrument when I went to a museum in Taipei and they were selling mbiras. I found it satisfying and really cool to play. When I was given this assignment, I was going to build a xylophone with my friend, but later we decided to make our own instrument. I was thinking about which instrument to make and I thought of the materials I had at home. I knew I had a lot of bobby pins and other materials that are needed to build the instrument. Therefore, I decided that this instrument was suitable for because I already had the materials. When I started building my instrument, I thought it was going to be really hard with the metal strips because I need to experiment with the position for a long time. It turned out to be true because it really did take a long time and had a level of difficulty.