We all know that wood has the magic for creativity and carving from the wood has been a work of art for so long times. Our ancestors have used wood as a major raw material in all sorts of engineering for making instruments.
Wood has several strengths and benefits which are crucial for the construction of musical instruments made out of wood:-
- To start with, wood is easier to cut and be given shape as compared to metals and other chemical items.
- Wood is comparatively lightweight and has better portability characteristics, be it the manoeuvre of raw material or even after it has been crafted and designed.
- Wood has better acoustical properties—how materials respond to the sound waves coming to them. The denser wooden structures respond to the sound very well. This has its strengths when compared to metallic instruments.
- Wood has astonishing sonorous properties that result in the best pick for musical instruments. Though the intensity of the sonorous property fluctuates from wood to wood, then there are different types of wood with different applications and strengths.
There are several trees used in making musical instruments that are further classified as hardwood such as Mahogany, Maple, and Rosewood are standard for instrument bodies, while softwood such as spruce is taken into account for soundboards of many musical instruments such as guitar, mandolin, and violin. The list of instruments made of wood goes never-ending when thoroughly researched.
For any musical instrument made out of wood, the best type of wood is dependent upon the need of sound one is looking for. Let’s credit the following facts to get some knowledge upon it:-
If you possess tiny and nimble fingers, you can play the shortest guitar which is just 10 Microns. This instrument comes in at 1/100,000 meter long which is about the size of human cells.
The greater part of the material used in guitar is wood, be it ancient guitars or modern guitars. The typical woods used for the body and the neck of guitars these days are East Indian Rosewood, Honduran Mahogany, Brazilian Mahogany, Bubinga, Flame Maple, Gaboon Ebony, Hard Maple, Spanish Cedar which are the best wood for musical instruments.
Woods from across various regions and parts of the world are used for the manufacture of electric guitars such as Rosewood, Bubinga, and more. Poplar wood for musical instruments is lightweight and can be constructed easily by machine.
The banjo emerged among West African slaves in the 1600s in America, typically an illustration of stringed instruments which was existed in Africa for centuries called plucked lutes. It dated back over 6000 years. The modern banjo has evolved into various forms and categories such as four, five, and six-string versions.
These heads were made of animal skin in the ancient times, which is now replaced by the wood such as East Indian Rosewood, Honduran Mahogany, Brazilian Mahogany, Bubinga, Flame Maple, Gaboon Ebony, Hard Maple, Spanish Cedar for making musical instruments made out of wood. With exotic woods in the play and the increased use of it, enhancing the quality of sound.
Around the 18th century, the banjo had been provided 19 different spellings which include bonjoe, and banza. The word 'banjo' is a derivative of the word Yoruba word 'Bami jo' which signifies 'dance for me'.
The ukulele is a member of the lute family of musical instruments made out of wood. Then again, there are few bifurcations of the quality of woods used in a distinct type of ukuleles.
For instance, there is inexpensive ukulele which is mostly made of plywood or laminate woods, while in other cases with a soundboard of a tonewood such as spruce.
On the other hand, the expensive ukuleles are made of solid hardwoods such as Honduran Mahogany, Brazilian Mahogany, East Indian Rosewood, Hard Maple, Flame Maple, including other types of Rosewoods and Mahogany. The Tahitian ukulele is another type of this family, which is carved from a single piece of wood and does not constitute a hollow soundbox.
There are several other musical instruments made out of wood, such as piano and harp followed by woodwind instruments such as clarinet, oboe, bassoon including percussion instruments such as Xylophone and Marimba.
The Xylophone was previously called ‘wooden clatter’ while it changed to ‘straw fiddle’. The xylophone is often confused with the marimba, but then it has its well-defined characteristics that differentiate from the marimba.
The xylophone has thick, hardwood bars made of Mahogany and Rosewood with shorter notes. Though it’s established that the structure of xylophone is abundantly made by hardwood, it can also be constructed from other types of wood like maple and bamboo. It all depends on the sound which is required by the end-user.
Different types of wood have different acoustical properties and this variation should be known before constructing any musical instrument.
Conclusion:-
In this article, we have established that each musical instrument made out of wood has its own universal strength which cannot be overtaken by others. A substantial and reasonable amount of research needs to be done on which instrument can be constructed by which wood based on the sound the user wants and other properties of wood so that we get to know how to make a musical instrument out of wood.
The hardwood which is used for making musical instruments such as East Indian Rosewood, Honduran Mahogany, Brazilian Mahogany, Bubinga, Flame Maple, Gaboon Ebony, Hard Maple, Spanish Cedar and many more are available in Exotic Wood Zone with fair and best offers. It’s the best way to shape your musical instrument which eventually will shape your effort.
