A Percussionist's Notebook

The handle installation went smoothly, insert the handle into the bottom hole, using combinations of popcorn, beans, wood beads and bone beads thru the top hole and continue pushing the handle into the top hole. Finishing the rattles was similar to that of the rawhide rattle. Leather/suede from Hobby Lobby and thrift stores, feathers (from a ringneck pheasant that I shot in 1968 during my hunter-gatherer days),fur from a friend's discarded coat, wood and plastic beads from a recycle store, pieces of deer antler that my father gave me years ago, the hair (to imitate horse hair) was from wigs I found at a thrift store at Halloween. Leather glue was mostly used for attaching all of these. There were times when the glue needed to set immediately so I applied super glue and sprayed a fine mist of ammonia to accelerate it.    I'll be shipping these off to Stan soon. My next project? I'll be cleaning the drum room😬

 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...

Two weeks ago I received an email from Stan, he's writing an ensemble piece for a high school percussion group in Georgia. The piece calls for Native American rattles and he asked me if I knew any places to buy some. I thought it would be an interesting project for me so I volunteered to make them.  My intention was to make gourd rattles from Coyote, aka Buffalo gourds which are native to the southwest including here in Southern Colorado, and since I was planning my trip to Picketwire Canyon, this would be an opportunity to look for some. Unfortunately my trip had to be canceled so I drove some back roads towards Pueblo to look for some plants. That was also a bust. A trip to a nursery and buying a gourd was the next bad idea, after sitting in the sun for 3 days it just shriveled up and caved in. But then I watched a Youtube video on making a rawhide rattle. The gourd idea went on hold while I started collecting the materials for my rawhide rattle. Getting the rawhide was the first...