Mandy Brown surprised her professors with the quality of the 7-foot marimba she made for a senior seminar project. It's a tough project. BEN FREDMAN/THE FREE LANCE-STAR Visit the Photo Place

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Meet marimba maker

Local woman makes instrument with father, wows her professors and strengthens her ties with her dad at the same time

Audio: Click the play icon to hear Mandy Brown's marimba.

BY KIM BAER

Date published: 11/11/2008

BY KIM BAER

Two years ago, Mandy Brown Web-surfed her way into a huge project.

She found a book online called "Make Your Own Marimba."

The title caught her eye.

She had played the marimba, an instrument that looks like a xylophone, since the eighth grade.

Building one from scratch sounded like fun, but she knew she'd need help pulling it off. Luckily, she knew just who to ask.

Brown called her dad to tell him about the book she'd found.

"He was like, 'Great, let's do this.'"

But Brown, a music major at the University of Mary Washington, had little spare time.

They made a promise: For Brown's senior seminar project, they would build a marimba. And they did.

'A MAJOR UNDERTAKING'

Nearly every weekend from January through April, they worked on the marimba in the garage of the family's home in Spotsylvania County's Fox Point subdivision.

Chris Brown helped with the power tools and building the frame.

Mandy Brown made sure the marimba made beautiful music. That wasn't easy.

Marimba-making requires knowledge of physics and acoustic theory, said Craig Naylor, an associate professor of music at UMW. For instance, Brown had to cut the marimba's keys to the proper lengths to get the right pitch, Naylor said.

She had to shave each key in the middle to produce the precise pitch and overtone.

She had to find the nodes, the places where the bar does not vibrate, where she drilled a hole to mount the bar to the frame.

She had to ensure that all of the keys were in proper scale.

"It's a major undertaking," he said.

Marshall Maley, percussion instructor at UMW, wasn't sure Brown could pull it off. He now believes she could be a professional marimba-maker. He's seen bands perform with marimbas that look and sound like Brown's.

"I've had students attempt to build keyboard instruments before, but never as thoroughly as she did," he said.

"The effort she put into it and the result was just stunning to me."

Brown eventually moved beyond "Make Your Own Marimba."

She read five books about the math behind building the instrument.

ABOUT THE MARIMBA It's easy to compare the marimba and the xylophone because they look similar. But the instruments are completely different, Brown said. The marimba can produce lower sounds and has different overtones. Theories vary on the marimba's origin. Most experts now believe the instrument developed in Asia and spread to Africa and South America. The instrument is an integral part of African and Guatemalan tribal music, she said, and is Guatemala's official instrument. It was introduced in America in 1915 and became a standard concert instrument in the 1940's. A professional concert marimba ranges in price from $3,000 to $10,000, according to the Web site makeamarimba.com. Brown's marimba cost less than $500 to build.

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Date published: 11/11/2008