Child Friendly Musical Garden
We have a bit of yard space that we call the Fairy Forest created for children to use their imagination in. It has, of course, fairies, gnomes and their homes but we decided to include some musical fun as well. This is the first thing we added other then some windchimes and bells. Do you have a musical garden?
It consists of 3 materials and 2 tools and if you happen to already have the wood it will cost less. And really it's not that loud so isn't bothersome for neighbors.
Once you determine where your music instrument is going cut your treated wood to the correct length. We used leftover deck planks and attached the 2 pieces of wood to two small trees so we didn't need to install it permanently in the ground. Alternately you could attach it to a frame for indoor / outdoor play.
Then loosely attach 8 metal brackets to each piece of wood spaced slightly apart from each other on the two boards.
Cut your two 10ft PVC pipes. The tallest will be 35" and the shortest will be 21" with each one 2 inches different. You can see in this photo we marked the length of each inside the pipe- 35, 33, 31, 29, 27, 25, 23, 21 inches in length.
We measured the top of one board to the bottom of the other board and secured them 14" apart. Adjust as needed but remember your shortest pipe is 21" and your longest is 35".
Slide each PVC pipe into the 2 brackets so that each extends about 4 inches from the top wood.
Have someone measure the top height and hold each pipe while another person tightens the brackets.
One end will have the shortest pipe while the other end will have the longest. Make sure the longest one does not touch the ground.
You're almost there! This is such an easy and fun project and great anticipation for even the adults!
Using a flip flop or other narrow piece of foam rubber to hit the top of each pipe and hear the different notes!
Resources for this project:
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Comments
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I wonder if you placed a V cut near the top of the pipe, would the wind blowing make them whistle? 😁
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Have to agree with Hb, great for a while and then they need to be capped.
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I'm a piano teacher and this project would be an amazing addition to my yard! I'm thinking of adding five more pipes to it to create the twelve notes in an octave's worth of piano keys, then painting those five pipes black so they even LOOK like piano keys. What a fun idea; thanks for sharing this!
PS There are already tuned plastic pipes called Boomwhackers on the market, but these look far more durable.
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?
Could the pipes be attached to a saw horse so it could be moved?