Skip to main content

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.






































Comments

Popular posts from this blog

La Caverna del oro

 One of our first backpacking trips in Colorado was in the Sangre de Christo Mountains. One mountain in particular drew our attention. Marble Mountain was the location of a famous story of a Spanish cave of gold. There are many places on the web that tell this story better than I could, suffice it to say that we wanted to locate it and see the iconic 'Maltese Cross' located at it's entrance.  In 1974 after I got out of the Army we invited some friends to join us on this trip. We parked our car at the trailhead in the Wet Mountain Valley and backpacked up Marble Mountain to 12,000 feet. In one of the culverts we found the entrance to the cave. Maltese Cross at the Caverna del oro It turned out to be a real thing. The large red cross was still visible after 400 yrs. According to legend the Spanish put it there in the 1600's. I did have the courage to crawl into it but only a few feet. After about 10 feet there is a vertical shaft that drops about 750 feet!  The Cross is v...

The Amadinda

  The Amadinda is an African xylophone originally made from slabs of wood or even large sticks, with or without gourds for resonators. There was no reason for this project other than to see if I could make a simple mallet instrument. The box was made from plywood (which also acted as the resonators) and the bars were made from maple.  Since this was to be a true xylophone, the bars were all of equal width. Tuning was done by cutting the bars to different lengths and removing material from the bottom. Using a router I created a sort of 'stepped pyramid' instead of the traditional arc cut found on marimba or xylophone bars.  Cutting the underside is not only for tuning but it focuses the pitch and creates the characteristic overtones of the instrument. Since I wanted to play this with other 'Western' instruments, I chose to use a pentatonic scale of 2 2/5 octaves (C#,D#,F#,G#,A#,C#,D#,F#,G#,A#,C#,D#). Two people sit on either side of the instrument and strike the ends of ...

Zenith tubes, Analema, and Crossed Trapezes

The Zenith Sun  A common characteristic in Mesoamerica is the observance of the sun's zenith passage. This happens when the sun passes directly overhead at noon. It appears twice a year around late April and mid-August. Many ancient sites from Mexico east to the Yucatan seem to have systems built into their architecture to show this phenomenon. In the Mayan city of Kabah there is a cylindrical stone marker placed vertically in a plaza that seems to act as a gnomon that will produce a shadow every day except during the time of the sun's zenith position when the shadow disappears. In Monte Alban, Oaxaca and Xochicalco, Mexico the devices are more sophisticated. These have Zenith tubes in buildings that direct the rays of the sun down their passages to produce a circle of light onto the floor of a darkened chamber.  Looking up through the zenith tube Sun light on the floor of Xochicalco zenith tube. The Mixtec A-O glyph The Mixtec A-O glyph was their symbol for 'year'. The...