I am a longtime fan of the music that Nerissa and Katryna Nields have made for families, I talked about their first family album All Together Singing in the Kitchen on NPR, and their follow-up, the 2-CD set Rock All Day, Rock All Night is also very good. So when I heard that the sisters were writing a book on making music by families, I was very excited, not only because it was a book that I thought needed to be written but because I thought the two of them -- who, after all, created their own music-and-caregivers program called HooteNanny -- would be particularly well-suited to writing about the process. I was right. All Together Singing in the Kitchen: Creative Ways to Make and Listen to Music as a Family (a book with an accompanying CD of many songs from the book) is released this week, but we've had a copy in our house for the past month and so I can say it's a great book -- funny in places while moving in others, both practical and philosophical, and appropriate both for music novices and those with musical backgrounds. My wife, a preschool teacher with no musical training (but who enjoys singing to our kids and her class), has found some things she can use, while I, an amateur to be sure but with musical training on several instruments, also found some helpful tips not to mention inspiration. Indeed, the sisters note that they -- touring musicians with several albums under their belt -- found themselves at a loss initially when they had kids, trying to figure out how to integrate music into their families' lives. So I highly recommend the book, even for those families out there whose kids are of elementary age or older. (But I think it'd make an awesome baby gift, too.) And the Nields and their publisher, Shambhala, have graciously allowed me to excerpt a portion of the book here. This selection is from Chapter 9, titled "Homemade Instruments." On the practical-philosophical scale, the chapter is one of the more practical chapters in the book, though even those chapters have some more philosophical asides. For example, the book includes numerous "sidebars" from each of the sisters, and relative to the homemade guitars discussed below, Katryna notes in a sidebar (not excerpted below) that her son had begun his mandatory gun fascination phase but that "when he became enraptured with guitars, his whole reality switched. Rather than every stick becoming a gun or a sword, everything became a guitar." Anyway, I love this book, and I think you'll find something of value here, just as I know you'll find a lot of value to be found in the entire book. Enjoy. (And you can order All Together Singing in the Kitchen here.) Chapter 9: Homemade Instruments Part of our mission is to show you that your home is filled with musical instruments, many of which are already available. Don’t throw out that yogurt container. Turn it upside down, grab a pencil, and you have a drum. Fill glasses with different amounts of water, tap them with a chopstick, and you have a makeshift xylophone. Grab a tennis racket and you’ve got a guitar. Turn a hairbrush bristle side out and you’ve got a microphone. maybe you’re even more adventurous than this. perhaps you’re a little crafty. This chapter will show you how to make drums, percussion instruments, and even guitars out of ordinary items. Homemade Percussion There are drums all over your kitchen. Any pot, pan, Tupperware bowl, or oatmeal container is a drum. Give your child a wooden spoon, and you can actually make dinner while she bangs away on your flour container. most people we know have at least one cabinet they haven’t babyproofed. It’s filled with baby-safe kitchen items that inevitably turn into an orchestra. Our friend Val keeps an old hatbox and a set of drum brushes on her coffee table at all times, just in case a sing-along breaks out and someone wants to join in. Here are some easy ways to add more percussion instruments to your home.