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Jingle Stick and Rutes

Canyon Winds is programing 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest' for the Spring concert. Of the many percussion instruments that's called for in the score, two of the instruments that we don't have are Pulli Sticks and Jingle Stick.
The Pulli Sticks (more commonly  known as Puili  Sticks) are made of slotted bamboo tubes. Considering that this is a very prominent sound throughout the piece, I was afraid that the traditional Puili Stick would last only for a few rehearsals before it became kindling for a camp fire (especially if it were played by our resident gorilla).  I decided that a more appropriate and durable stick would be a Rute. They are similar in that they are both bundled, but the Rute is usually made from small wooden dowel rods. I decided to make 2 different Rutes: 1 with fiberglass rods (see my Triangle Beaters post) and the other with 1/4" Wooden dowel rods.

Both have 7 pieces: 1 in the center with 6 around) 16"L. I used 'heat shrink' tubes to form the handles and applied 2 part epoxy to the bottoms of the rods to stabilize them. I also dipped the top ends of the fiberglass rods to keep them from fraying. Smaller 'heat shrink' tubing was used for the tops of the wooden rods for the same reason.
Since the fiberglass rods were straight, I put 'heat shrink' tubing on 3 outside rods about half way down the length to create a slight spread at the ends. The wooden rods have a warp so I didn't need to spread them. I did, however, add a rubber 'O' ring so that the amount of spread could be adjusted.


The Jingle Stick was made from an old snare drum stick and 4 sets of brass tambourine jingles left over from another project (see Making Tambourine Jingles). The brass jingles give a much bigger sound than the stamped steel jingles from the inexpensive jingle sticks on the market and since I already had these materials lying around, this cost virtually nothing.

Rehearsals start in Mid-January so I will find out how they sound then.






































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