Skip to main content

More Rattles- Gourds

 My original thought of using Coyote gourds fell through so I cheated and ordered some from Amazon. I received 4 'Cannonball' gourds last week. They are called 'Cannonball' gourds because the shape and size resembles cannonballs from the Civil War era. Although they were dried, they still had to be drilled (for handles) and the center pulp removed. Drilling was easy, I started with a 1/16" bit and worked my way up to 5/8". The sizing of the bits was critical, starting with too large of a bit would crack the shell of the gourd.

Drilling the holes for handles


The hard part started when I tried to remove the seeds and pulp from the inside. My wife and I shared some quality time together removing everything from the 4 gourds while watching reruns of The Twilight Zone. It wasn't until later that night when I read that the insides usually have mold in them and the process should be done outdoors with a mask (OOPS!) So I put everything in the garage for the night and vacuumed the entire house before going to bed. Using screwdrivers got rid of the majority of stuff but there was still a layer of soft pulp left on the insides. For the final cleaning I placed sheet metal screws and square nuts from bolts, shaking the gourd in every conceivable pattern/removing the nuts and screws/ blowing the dust out with my compressor. I repeated this pattern for 3 hours outside and left them in the sun for 2 days. That worked.
The next step was to experiment with different materials to put in the gourds. This started my 'Goldylocks principle', the metal nuts were loud but produced a dead sound, popcorn gave a higher pitch but was too soft, wooden beads gave a loud sound and a sharper sound, beans were too muted, bone beads were similar to the wooden beads with a sharper sound. Since I was making 4 rattles for this project I decided to mix them up.
No.1 has wooden beads only.
No. 2 has wooden beads and a small amount of popcorn.
No.3 has bone beads.
No.4 has wooden and bone beads.

Choosing that proper rattle sound


I need to get more wooden and bone beads and then the next step will be to install the handles.







Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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  The Amadinda is an African xylophone originally made from slabs of wood or even large sticks, with or without gourds for resonators.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 ...
3 comments
Read more

Tambourine Shell Repair

A broken tambourine shell usually means that a new tambourine purchase is necessary. This can be exciting: I like getting new instruments, or sad: Any instrument that is damaged is a terrible thing. All tambourine shells can break, from my famous $14 variety to top of the line brands like Grover and Black Swamp. It's easy to replace a tambourine head but broken shells/missing pins and jingles usually means an early grave for the instrument. My early attempts at these repairs were stopgap measures until a new one was found. Wood or 'super' glue used on the shell turned out to be poor choices. It wasn't until last year that I really focused on shell repair. It happened during a Canyon Winds rehearsal when one of our tambourines exploded, pins and jingles were flying everywhere. Yep, it was the Resident Gorilla playing it. The shell had cracked between three sets of jingles near the head of the tambourine. We eventually replaced this with a Black Swamp tambourine but I s...
2 comments
Read more

The Practice Pad

The practice pad has long been a staple for the drummer. After a pair of sticks it usually was the next thing purchased. Or in the case for my brother and I, a DIY project by our father. It could be as simple as a square of linoleum nailed on a board to the double sided models that produce various amounts of rebound.  There are many reasons for using a practice pad. I'll start with the obvious: Practical: Compared to a real drum, they are cheap. They are fairly quiet, you can play them without annoying a sleeping parent or a neighbor in an adjoining apartment. They are portable, they can be taken on a family vacation where space is at a premium. Musical: Usually they provide more rebound than a drum head, which helps in developing single strokes but especially rolls. Articulation: The sound of each stroke is cleaner giving the player important feedback on the precision of their playing. Developing positional accuracy: Drawing a circle the size of a quarter on the pad provides a ...
2 comments
Read more