'Garden Implement Music ' - Terra Cotta Pots, et al

In my garden I have a pile of empty terra cotta pots of all sizes sitting in a pile by the side of my house.

Do I throw them out? try to give them away? Paint them up? (nope, no time in my life for that)

Wait - here's an idea - use them to make music!

These photos are from the Central Texas Gardeners Blog (CTGB - check out this great blog)

Terra cotta pots of varying sizes hang upside down from a sturdy board. You hit them with a drumstick which has one end wrapped in yarn. Each pot makes a different sound. (This reminds me of the time my mother, studying at Cooper Union as an art student, created a homemade 'musical intrument' in our living room. Part of it consisted of cans hanging upside down and I would, as a child, bang away on them for hours.....I think terra cotta makes a better sound.)

This is the drumstick (Courtesy CTGB)

In addition, you can use the grass clippers (open close, open close) to add another percussive sound:

Of course you can add the sound of water, the dog can keep time and maybe some garden critters will add harmony. As Linda Lehmusvirta writes in her wonderful blog,

"the fountain adds its own percussion. The toads chime in with lyrics".

(photo from Central Texas Gardeners Blog)

 When you put this all together you get a lovely 'garden implement' composition.

Here is a short clip of  the Mundi Ensemble (with Mundi’s cellist, Carolyn Hagler in her colorful Austin garden). Find out more about this in the Central Texas Gardeners Blog.