Musical Inventions, 1st Edition

Preface: Musical Inventors

There is a long tradition of turning recycled items into homemade instruments. But creating new instruments is much more than an art form. It take science, technology, engineering, and math to build an instrument that sounds good, looks good, works well, and is enjoyable to play. And it takes a couple other things—a love of music, and a sense of fun.

Figure P-1: Bluegrass musician, math teacher, and musical inventor Mac Petrequin makes banjos out of cookie tins in his basement workshop.

I wrote Musical Inventions because I’m a Maker who loves to explore ways to turn everyday stuff into fun and useful objects. I get ...