Sanding Blocks of a Different Kind

I have made some weird stuff in my workshop but my wife always seems to have one more request that throws me off balance.  In a previous life I was a musician and have formal training in pedagogy specifically relating to singing.  I was taught to use the Kodaly method of sight singing using solfedge (do-re-me-fa-so-la-ti) and it has always been very effective.  My wife however teaches a younger range of students and Kodaly is not always as effective as the methods that Carl Orff of Carmina Burana fame developed.  There is a lot of rhythm and unvoiced work with this so you find little percussion instruments like wood blocks and sticks (no cowbell, sorry guys).

So with her school’s open house approaching, Heather decided she would put on an Orff demonstration for prospective students and their parents.  The brightly colored, preschool looking instruments she has just look silly so she asked me if I would make a cool looking sand block.  This is really just a block of wood with sandpaper glued to it but it makes a great rhythm tool and a saucy, scratchy, beat to dance too!

To the scrap pile wood slingers!

Enter a small block of Mahogany, and a strip of Wenge.

Saw, plane, chamfer, saw, plane, chamfer…glue…

***no electrons were harmed during the making of these wood blocks***

…dance and sing a bit to the radio and ta-da!

Let’s make music, and I get wife brownie points.  Possibly the most important reason to take up woodworking ever.