Self-Made Instruments/ Instrumentenselbstbau

Orff's idea that the player of ELEMENTAL MUSIC should also be able to build their own instrument goes back to ethnomusicological aspects that were conveyed to him by music anthropologist Curt Sachs (Weinbuch, 2010, 54ff.). Orff calls for IMPROVIASTION in the Orff-Schulwerk – ELEMENTARE MUSIKÜBUNG to be closely "connected to the instrument" (Orff, 1932/33, as cited in Kugler, 2002, 191), as is found in the so-called primitive cultures (PRIMITIVE MUSIC), where the musician is "not only the instrument player, but also his own instrument maker" (ibid.). The BAUHAUS movement probably also had a certain influence, which in its idea of work demanded a close relationship between the artist, the qualities of the material and the meaning of the object they were creating. In Orff's concept of elemental music, the instrumentalist was to build up a sensual relationship to the instrument by engaging with the material (Kugler, 2002, 191f.).

The self-construction of small percussion instruments such as rattles and bells was common in the GÜNTHER-SCHULE from the very beginning (Orff, 1976, 18), as sound generators were needed that could be incorporated in the dance movements. Around 1930, Gunild Keetman founded a workshop in which small percussion instruments, skin instruments, xylophones and recorders were built. A photo from 1933 shows Keetman at work with two students (Kugler, 2002, 267). Orff then planned a set of instructions for making elemental instruments himself for his publication series Elementare Musikübung. He invited Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack from the Bauhaus to give lessons in instrument making at the branch of the Günther-Schule in Berlin. The result of this work was to be published in the publication series Elementare Musikübungas a booklet entitled Bastelbuch[Activities book] (Twittenhoff, 1935, 24). This booklet was not published, which can be attributed to Hirschfeld-Mack's emigration to England in 1936 and the discontinuation of the publication series by Schott-Verlag.

Instruments built by Keetman and the students themselves are on display in a glass cabinet in the foyer of the Orff Institute Salzburg.