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Building an African Marimba

From scratch...

A guide to making your own marimbas when you have no idea how to start...

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Pete Merrow-Smith is a biology teacher and An African marimba enthusiast...

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There are lots of websites out there explaining how others have made marimbas...but usually these sites rely on using pre-purchased plans (or selling them).  This site describes how to make a marimba when you don't want to buy plans or work to other people's measurements.

Before you dive straight into the individual project pages linked below, you should first look at the following page which  explains the theory and the basics of marimba building that I had to learn before I began to make real progress.  Click the link below to take you to the background information pages...

Build Projects

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Soprano Marimba

Two octaves (C4 to C6)

Click the beaters

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Tenor Marimba

Two octaves plus (G2 to C5)

Click the beaters

Working with marimbas
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Wrapping your own Marimba Beaters

Click the beaters

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Writing arrangements using 'Garage Band'

Click the beaters

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