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Gourds have served
for centuries as the basis of musical instruments from rattles to banjos,
sitars, and marimbas. Being hollow, a gourd serves as a natural resonating
chamber, important in the manufacture of sound. Only bamboo rivals the gourd
as the choice material for the construction of primitive musical instruments
worldwide.
(The gourd instruments pictured here – except the sitar - were crafted
by Bea and Larry Kruse, former TGS members, of Gourd Harmony, Inc. in Harker
Heights.)
An Idiophone is an instrument that produces sounds from the material
of the instrument itself without the assistance of reeds, strings, or other
externally applied resonators. The most common methods of creating sounds
are through striking two objects together or though striking, rubbing, or
scraping the instrument. These are probably the oldest type of instruments.
These gourd instruments may be simple – the whole intact gourd with the
seeds inside – or compound – a cut gourd with a handle attached and stones
or seeds added to create the desired sound. The rattle is one of the most
widespread of all idiophones.
"Shake-re" is a general term used to describe a beaded
gourd rattle. It originated in West Africa and is a handmade rattle consisting
of a hollow gourd covered on the outside with a net of seeds, beads, shells,
or any other available material. The Shake-re derives its distinctive sound
from the netted arrangement of netted material that hits against the gourd's
hard outer surface when the gourd is shaken. This instrument continues to
grow in popularity and is rapidly becoming a part of contemporary musical
expression. If you watch "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", you will usually
see the girl in the band using a Shake-re during the song as the show begins
– but that is usually the only time during the show that you see it.
The "Ipu" is the concussion drum of Hawaii. It is a large bottle
gourd with the top removed. Sounds are created with the Ipu by slapping the
gourd with the hand or by dropping or thumping the gourd on the padded ground.
"Guiros" are a type of friction Idiophone. They are created by cutting
a sound hole or by removing the end of an elongated gourd. Grooves are cut
across the gourd's surface, and rubbing a wire or thin wooden stick across
those grooves produces sound. Other Idiophones include the "thumb piano"
of Africa and the wooden-keyed xylophones or marimbas of Africa and South
America; in these, the instrument sounds are amplified through the addition
of gourds as resonators.
The rain stick made from a gourd would be another type of idiophone.
Small dowels or rods are played across the gourd; seeds may be left in or
replaced with beads, beans, gravel, or other small objects. Turning the
rain stick on end produces a sound similar to falling rain as the material
cascades across the inserted rods. The rain stick was probably invented
in the desert region of Chile in an effort to encourage rain in their arid
region.
An Aerophone is an instrument that produces sound by using air as
the primary vibrating means; the sound is produced without the use of strings
or membranes and without the vibration of the instrument itself. Traditional
Africa is filled with a variety of horn-like instruments either made from
gourds entirely or in which gourds are used as a component. The long necks
of dipper gourds are often fashioned into multi-holed flutes. There are
many examples of trumpet-type horns and double- and single-reeded oboe and
clarinet types of instruments. Some are as simple as gourd whistles. Nose
flutes have been found in Polynesia and in the Native North American Southeast;
these are single- to triple-holed instruments made from small pear-shaped
gourds and blown "bottle-neck" fashion. Another example of an aerophone
is the Hawaiian "swing-top" instrument – a small gourd with its top removed
and swung by a string around the head; it produces a high-pitched whistling
sound.
A third class of instruments is the Membranophone; this instrument
produces tones by vibrating a membrane stretched across a resonating chamber.
The drum is the most common gourd instrument in this class; the gourd's
natural hollow resonating chamber makes it a perfect material. Cutting the
end off a gourd, cleaning out the gourd, and stretching a wet rawhide over
the cut end, and securing the rawhide creates the drum. The sounds are made
by striking the rawhide with ones hand or with wooden sticks. The gourd
drum almost certainly originated in Africa. A kazoo is another type of Membranophone.
The fourth class of instruments is the Chordophone. This group of
instruments produces sound primarily by way of a vibrating string or strings
stretched between two points. The gourd functions to amplify the sound of
the plucked strings. Instruments in this class include lutes, violins, guitars,
zithers, and harps. The sitar has a long neck, 20 frets, and originally
had three strings; the modern sitar has many more strings. The frets
are movable to produce a wide variety of modes and tunings. The veena
is a similar instrument but has 24 frets, four main strings, and three supporting
strings. These instruments are popular in India, and Chordophones are found
throughout Africa. If is said that Pablo Casals learned to play on a gourd
cello.
by Joe Pritchard
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