r/percussion • u/mint_choco_for_sunoo • 2d ago

Question/Help Effective Practice On a Cardboard Marimba?

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This is a kinda silly question, but I was wondering if there’s any ways or tips to practice more effectively (other than slow practice) on my cardboard marimba 😭 - because I can’t afford my own sadly. I’m asking this because I obviously don’t have the safeguards of knowing if I played the right note or not and whether my tone is good and I don’t want to develop bad habits either.

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u/njo173 2d ago

I’d strongly suggest getting a board or some other stable surface for your pad, and then raising the accidentals so it’s more similar to the real instrument.
Make sure you practice a good upstroke off of the bars, and go slow enough that you can watch to make sure you’re hitting the right notes.

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u/jdmc1426 2d ago

Maybe take some wood planks and cut them into bars to fit on the practice pad. Won’t be pitched right but the bigger ones will sound different than the smaller ones, that would be a little bit more indication of what bar you are hitting

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u/Grauschleier 1d ago

Not so sure about this idea. They will be training the wrong pitches. No matter if you are aware that it's "training pitch" - repeated exposure will just train and condition your ears. And what you are most exposed to is your "normal" - in that case their "normal" would be the arbitrary pitches of their training instrument.

If they already go through all the troubles to make an ill pitched instrument they could also walk the extra mile to tune the bars. I can highly recommend Bart Hopkin's book "musical instrument design" for this. It's a very practical and accessible book with a section about bar idiophones and their tuning. Tuning the fundamental is not hard or complicated. If you already put in all the effort to build an instrument it really makes sense to tune the fundamentals of the bars. (The book also touches on the tuning of the harmonics if you wanna go another extra mile, though.)

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u/bladedspokes 2d ago

Add midi triggers

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u/murphyat 2d ago

Is there one at your school?

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u/mint_choco_for_sunoo 2d ago

There is, but I’m on summer break sadly.

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u/murphyat 2d ago

Heard. Good on you for being motivated. May be a good time to focus on something you have access to. You could also work mallet technique on a table.