About Jim
Hi – I’m Jim McCarthy – Professional musician and self confessed nut on all thing percussion related. I’m also the designer and builder of several percussion instruments and tools and websites relating to various aspects of percussion.
These days I perform in “The Rhythm Works”, R@taque Percussion Duo and various other shows. I also teach percussion to a wide variety of students, and increasingly spend my time performing clinics on percussion technique.
I studied Percussion at Adelaide University for a number of years first under Richard Smith then under Jim Bailey, and finished in 1996 with A Masters degree in performance. I became obsessed with two things when I started tertiary education – composing music and building bass marimbas. Here’s a photo of a couple of contra bass marimbas I built in the early 90s.
Jim's Early Home-built DIY contra-Bass Marimbas
But these days my goals are much more practical… I design instruments especially for people like you. It started years ago when I built a few instruments to assist my wife in her school music program. You may have seen the Project 1 Box resonated Xylophone, or the Project 2 mini-marimba which people all around the world are already building to save money for their schools, as well as being interesting to play and enjoy for children.
You might also have seen the more advanced P3 – a three octave marimba for spacesaving or practise – or the PV concert vibraphone – a fully working pro vibraphone.
All of these instruments are designed especially with the average person in mind to build – they do NOT require any special materials, tools or skills to build.
This blog is about the next project on the list – the P4to5. It is a full size professional concert marimba which can be any range from 4 to 5 octaves – your choice – I’m building the 5 octave version.