This album has had a curious life.

From the 1980s through the turn of the century, I spent a great deal of time working in elementary schools. Sometimes I was hired directly by the school, but more often I contracted with either a regional or state art council program. Although I did my share of urban schools, the bulk of my time was in tiny rural communities in Oregon, Alaska and Washington. And when I say rural, I mean that some places were only accessible by boat or float plane!

My classes consisted of helping the kids build musical instruments out of, well, trash, really. For the youngest, we’d make simple percussion instruments like shakers and friction drums. The instruments got more complicated as the kids moved up in grade: bull-roarers, bleach bottle banjos, and Appalachian dulcimers made from scrap wood with a tin can for a resonator!

The point wasn’t just to make noise, the kids — and teachers — learned to play together. At the end of the residency, all the kids gave a performance for the community. For many children this was their first and only experience of playing music. I gotta say it was pretty dang satisfying.

A residency I did in Northern California was filmed by Lark in the Morning and distributed as an instructional video. Sadly, I no longer have a copy.

At some point I decided to record the songs I used in the schools. At the very least I’d be able to give copies to the school’s library.

I overdubbed all of the parts on my trusty 8-track tape machine. As the project grew — or I got more ambitious — I added a couple hokum blues songs that I knew the kids liked. (Yes, I cleaned up the lyrics.) I also cheated a bit and played some guitar and a really cheap electric bass. My friend Emy Phelps added some much-needed harmony parts.

So now I had a gen-u-wine kid’s album. I made a pile of cassettes under the descriptive title I used for my classes — “Boom Thumpity Twang Twang!” — and shopped them around to various labels. The silence was deafening, as they say.

So I basically forgot about the whole thing until a school teacher friend suggested I do a book instead. I wrote the folks at Mel Bay, who agreed and published “You Can Teach Yourself to Make Music With Home Made Instruments.” The book could be ordered with a CD and so my little recording project was saved from total oblivion.

Thanks to Bandcamp, you can now hear the album for the first time.
Here is a rundown of what’s on each track.

Iko Iko
claves, cuica, shakers, mouth bow, police whistle, pots and pans, cardboard box slide guitar, cardboard box dulcimer, electric bass

Oh, Susanna
Guitar, bleach bottle banjo, jaw harp, bones, washtub bass, harmonica

Ice Cream Man (John Brim)
guitar, bottle neck plastic guitar, paint brushes on tin paint roller tray, electric bass, mouth trumpet

Old Joe Clark/Camptown Races
tin can dulcimer, bleach bottle banjos, spoons, washtub bass

It’s So Simple (© 1987 Mark Nelson)
card board box slide guitar, tin can dulcimer, washtub bass, pots and pans

Foolish Frog
plastic guitar, cardboard box dulcimer, shakers, cuica, pots and pans,

Turkey in the Straw
chicken drum, cardboard box dulcimer, guitar, jaw harp

Mole in the Ground
cardboard box guitar

Monkey Hips and Rice (Lowman Pauling)
plastic guitar, guitar, electric bass, paint brushes on tin paint roller tray, mouth trumpet

Obwisana
thumb piano, dulcimer, triangle, hand drums, shakers, washtub bass