Making Our Marimba

This is a video documenting most of the process we went through when building our homemade marimba! :) We bought the plans from makeamarimba.com. (I am not affiliated with them, just appreciative of a thorough product!) It is 4.5 oct, and just over 7 feet long! We worked for roughly a month on it (nearly every day for a couple of hours.) Total material cost for the marimba was around $850.

Edit December 2016: My homemade marimba ("Simba") is still in great condition after about 2 years of use. We have transported the marimba five or six times to local performances. It fits (barely) in our small car! Despite having some bars whose sound quality bothers me, I am extremely happy with the overall quality of my practice marimba and know that by learning by doing through this process has helped me become a much more knowledgeable percussionist. Not to mention the indispensable practice advantage of having my own instrument at my fingertips when I'm home!

Edit April 2024: I sold my homemade marimba to a friend in 2020 and upgraded to a Mode Marimba 5.0. The homemade marimba is well-loved and I enjoyed my time with the Mode Marimba. Highly reccomend Mode if you want something good for practice and don't mind the ringy sound. In June of 2023 I made my (final) upgrade to a Marimba One after selling the Mode to a friend. Thanks to all who still enjoy this marimba video!

(Music: Spanish Dance comp/played by Kai Stensgaard)

Thanks for watching and please feel free to ask any questions!