Fashion a Makeshift Flute Using a Pile of Old Fast Food Wrappers
by Globot Bernard Fleshfactor
If your childhood dream of becoming a flautist was destroyed by poverty, here's your sweet revenge: you can create your own flute out of a pile of fast food wrappers and make first chair in under eight months. That's less time than making a baby!
As demonstrated by one of our favorite music teachers, you can fashion a pretty decent flute out of a pile of straw and a few fast food wrappers. This is a great project for kids as it's cheap and easy, but you can make one of your own if you've got an afternoon and a few dollars to spend on straws.
The video above will show you how to make your own makeshift flute, but here are the steps:
- Cut some straws to the desired length (about 20-22 inches).
- Tape the straws together to form a tube.
- Cut two circular pieces of fast food wrapper and tape them at the end of the tube. These will serve as the fipple for the flute and should be about 2-3 inches in diameter.
- Wrap another layer of fast food wrapper around the tube and secure it with tape all around the perimeter.
- Fold up the remaining excess wrapper and tape it to secure it to the tube. This will allow you to place the flute in your mouth without touching the fast food wrapper while playing.
- Finally, fold up another layer of fast food wrapper, place it into your mouth, and blow gently across the top of the flute to create a lovely melody.
Tuning the flute is really quite simple: if it doesn't sound good, just moisten one end of the flute with your tongue and blow across that side again until you get a decent tone. It's not going to sound like a real flute, but for less than $3 you'll have a decent instrument that'll get you playing first chair in no time.
How to Make Flutes from Straws | YouTube
