Xylophone Made from O'Reilly Books

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By Gareth Branwyn
Posted 2011/05/04 @ 6:30 pm
Category Music, Robotics

We’ve always prided ourselves on the resonant quality of O’Reilly titles amongst our readers, but we didn’t mean literally. This Japanese maker found that they generated the best sound when building a book xylophone. Apparently Japanese paper is too moist and returns more of a thud. But O’Reilly books are just right. And the varied book sizes (and uniform cover designs) came in handy too.

Musical instruments made of books [In machine-translated Manglish]

In the Maker Shed

Gift Certificate

Makey Makey Standard Kit

Telegraph Decoder Kit by Spikenzie Labs

MAKE Rovera 4WD Arduino Robot Kit

7 Responses to Xylophone Made from O'Reilly Books

David Seitz on May 5th, 2011 at 3:06 am said:

Does anyone know where one could get the components?
Not the books

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- Matt Richardson on May 5th, 2011 at 9:57 am said:
  
  I wanted to know the same thing! It looks like a fun product. In the comments of the blog post, two people ask and the response is “I think MIDI-TAP and Knocker! are handmade devices, and can’t be purchased.” I tried doing my own searches and came up empty handed. The YouTube comments on the video above lead me to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLbBEDNws60 and then to: http://www.maywadenki.com/ but then the trail went cold. “Knocker” is in the index section, but I can’t click on it. Hopefully someone will be able to figure out more about them. Perhaps the Japanese version of the site has the info we’re interested in.
  
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  Anonymous on May 5th, 2011 at 5:42 pm said:
  
  I did the same thing and ran into the same dead end. There’s a lot of stuff about the Knockerman toy line inspired by the Knocker, but I couldn’t find the Knocker itself being offered anywhere for sale. I got excited ’cause I thought it’d be a good product for the Shed to maybe carry. It appears that the guy who did the xylophone is actually the president of the company, so maybe I’ll try reaching out to him.
  
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  Damien Kunik on May 5th, 2011 at 9:07 pm said:
  
  I’m afraid you won’t find it for sale anywhere. Maywa Denki is the “stage name” of artist Tosa Nobumichi (you’ll find details here: http://www.maywadenki.com/english/00main_e_content.html look for the “company” tab). So the “Knocker” is actually more of a piece of art than a gadget. Maywa Denki is hugely popular in Japan and have had several exhibitions in Tokyo and abroad. What makes these exhibitions so cool is their interactivity and the opportunity for the public to play with Maywa Denki’s instruments.
  
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AndrewS on May 5th, 2011 at 8:49 pm said:

watched the video hoping to hear at least a semi recognizable tune from this “xylophone”
you should have called this Book Blue Man Group Tribute

the only cool and original thing about this project would have been ‘tuned’ books to notes, and i would have literally orgasmed if that had been the case. instead we have a half hearted physical sequencer.

–bitterly dissapointed

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