My name is Pete Merrow-Smith and between 1995 and 2002 I taught science at Orapa CJSS in Orapa, Botswana.  During this period my wife Jan also started teaching music at Bathoen House Primary School in Orapa.  Her school had a set of marimbas and part of her remit was to teach marimba playing.  Although she had not done this before, she worked alongside the outgoing teacher to develop her marimba teaching skills and thereafter went from strength to strength.  When our time came to say goodbye to Botswana, we purchased a set of marimbas to take home with us.  In total we bought four complete instruments (a soprano, tenor, baritone and bass) and additional keys to make another soprano and another tenor.

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A few years ago Jan launched her own small UK based company, African Marimba Workshops.  She invested in some new marimbas and now uses these to teach marimbas in the UK to primary schools and adult groups.  With my science background I have worked alongside her helping to keep the instruments in good repair and in tune.  I made new frames for our old marimbas, but I still relied on using the same keys that we had brought back from Africa fifteen years ago.

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For many years I have wanted to make a set of marimbas from scratch, including the keys (or tone bars, as some people call them).  I got the opportunity to pursue this dream a few months ago while working on contract in Kazakhstan.  This was always going to be quite a challenging project, but I was confident that with my past experience working with marimbas I would be able to find a way to modify materials and designs to come up with a working instrument or two.

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This site is designed to summarise my journey.  I hope it will also inspire and inform others who might be looking to make their own set of marimbas from first principles.   I am more of a bodger that a cabinet maker, so don't look too critically at the photos of my work in progress or finished instruments.  People following my methods and using power tools do so at their own risk - I take no responsibility for your own safety.  Be careful, work safely and have fun with your project.

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