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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. |
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.
Ultimately, she abandoned books and articles, and just made the marimba, seeking advice when needed from her professors and from Lawrence Hinkle, a Fredericksburg woodworker who makes marimbas.
'ONE OF THE BEST DAYS'
By late April, the Browns had completed the 7-foot-long, 3-octave marimba. Her marimba is diatonic, which basically means it plays the equivalent of the white keys on a piano.
She gave her senior seminar presentation to her professors in May.
She presented her paper about building the marimba. She shared what she'd learned about the marimba's origins, and she played her instrument.
She received a standing ovation from David Long, chairman of the university's music department. He told her it was one of the best senior seminar projects he'd seen at UMW.
Her family recorded her presentation. Her dad still watches the recording about once a week. His favorite part is, of course, the standing ovation.
"It makes me so proud," he said. "It was one of the best days of my life."
FINDING THEIR HARMONY
Both said their relationship grew stronger because of the project.
They are both stubborn, they said, and they had their disagreements.
Brown said he learned to let his daughter, who knew more about making the marimba sound right, be the one in charge. She had to accept that he knew more about using the tools.
"We learned that two headstrong people can both work together to a common goal," Chris Brown said.
Brown is musically inclined--he taught himself to play guitar and piano. Working with his daughter taught him more about music theory. He can now read her papers on the subject and understand them.
"Instead of her being on her own, she can talk about them with me," he said.
The marimba is in Brown's Fredericksburg home, but she hopes it becomes a key part of her classroom one day.
The 21-year-old is working on her master's in education at UMW's Center for Graduate and Professional Studies.
She plans to teach music to elementary schoolers, and she'd like to build smaller marimbas to use with her future students.
But she hasn't started yet. Why? "I need a few months to not think about marimbas."
Kim Baer: 540/834-0656
Email: kbaer@freelancestar.com
| 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. |
