Decorating your homemade shekere

I'm probably more a function-over-form, content-over-style person. It isn't that I don't appreciate beautiful objects but if the object has a function then I prefer something ugly but effective to something beautiful but unable to serve its purpose.

I recently visited a school where I had been making shekeres with the children in the manner described in a recent post. My sole purpose had been to make the instruments so the children could use them in performance and my plan for that day was to complete them. My lesson plan needed some quick revision, however, because I was met by the class teacher who took me into the art room and showed me how the children had been decorating the shekeres they had spent so much time on the previous week. This had involved coating the outsides of the plastic jars and bottles with papier mache and poster paint. I assume it had not been possible to remove the beads and netting and these had become tangled and gummed up with paint and glue.

The shekeres are still languishing in the art room awaiting completion. I don't have enough time in the school to get them into a state in which they can be finished and I have steered the workshops in another direction. Of course it didn't occur to me that they should look good. And it obviously didn't occur to the class teacher that I would make these instruments without some thought as to their visual impact. And after all, in most making projects the decoration comes at the end. Obviously we should have talked things through in more detail at the outset but we had no reason to suppose our expectations were any different.

I hope it is not a mistake I will make again, and I'm sure it is one most others would have avoided in the first place. On a practical note: decorate your shekeres, if that's what you mean to do, before you put the things together. For what its worth, the teacher talked of putting rice into the bottles and jars to make them louder. Given that the beads no longer rattle against the outside that is a very practical plan. But then they will be just so many shakers, an instrument I was trying to avoid, and not shekeres.

Damage limitation

Four breakages in one session last week and none in any others. Coincidence? The children were not unruly and in each case the damage could be put down to 'fair wear and tear'.

This session was different in that, because the materials had not arrived for the instrument-making session I had intended, I implemented a Plan B. The session was one that is familiar to music teachers across the land. In fact I'd walked in on one earlier in the week. Every child held some kind of percussion instrument and was ostensibly composing a piece of music. The teacher was sitting at a desk in the corner, beyond numb. It was impossible to hear what any of the groups (each of three or four children) was playing and I doubt the participants had any real sense of what they had created until they premiered it for the rest of the class at the end of the lesson.

The casualties in my session were an mbira (key detached), a dulcimer (broken string), a stick tambourine (jingles fell off) and my beloved kokiriko, pictured (the string snapped). The first three are easily mended but the kokiriko was assembled by the hands of someone who knew their craft. Restringing it will be a project in itself.

So why the damage? It's no coincidence that when teenagers form bands they usually do it in groups of three or four and don't practise in the same room as all the other bands. When you can't hear the instrument you are playing it's natural to play it a bit louder. If you still can't hear it you play it louder still.

The fact is that good instruments, of the kind that inspire children, are often delicate and expensive and need close supervision. You need instruments built like tanks for the kind of session described above.

So why do we teach music in this way? If you learn an instrument you are usually taught one-to-one or occasionally in small groups. It is accepted that you need to hear what you are doing. There are lots of useful things we could teach children but choose not to either because we lack the facilities (astronomy, skiing, bricklaying) or because we simply choose not to (typing, cycle maintenance). So why do we persevere with classroom music when we lack the space and staff to make it worthwhile? It has reputation amongst children as being a 'doss' subject. Unfortunate, perhaps, but fully deserved under the circumstances.

My childhood experience of classroom music involved a genial old bloke chatting to us about everything under the sun, including, but only occasionally and in passing, music. (I didn't really get what we were doing until I studied philosophy at university some years later.) There was a piano in the room but he never played it, perhaps because he didn't think we would appreciate it or perhaps because he knew better than to turn his back on us. Or maybe he couldn't bear the fact that it remained untuned from one year to the next. I wonder what he would have made of the National Curriculum? It's contents may be workable in a school with excellent facilities and well-disciplined, bright and motivated children. In many places even trying to implement it smacks of appeasement and I'm sure the old chap would have had none of it.

Music from cardborad tubes

You probably think I have too much time on my hands. This morning I took three cardboard tubes of different lengths: 14" (35cm), 27.5" (70cm) and 59.5" (151cm). They are all open at both ends. First I used them as didgeridoos by blowing a tasteful and prolonged raspberry down them. On the sound clip you hear the longest tube first, followed by the middle tube and then a trumpet-like note on the shortest. Each gives concert Bb but they are an octave apart. Using embouchure control it is possible to bend the note and alter the tone. I confess I am no didge player - the embouchure doesn't sit well with playing a clarinet - but I assure you that, in the right hands, the cardboard didge will sound quite acceptable. Just be sure, like any wind instrument, to give it a chance to dry after playing or you may find yourself with a biology experiment on your hands.

The fourth sound on the clip is the middle tube, which came from a roll of wrapping paper, being overdubbed to simulate a group of players. Great for 'swarm-of-flies' sound effects!

Finally I hit the end of the largest tube with the soul of a slipper - a big insult to the tube, apparently. The knack is to cover the entire rim of the tube end as you strike, forcing the air inside to move. The sound is resonant but the last few hits are on the middle tube and this sound is less satisfactory. Because gripping the tube tends to inhibit its natural resonance, holding the tube vertically and dropping it onto the ground then quickly catching it gets the best percussive result.

The long tube came from a material shop, the short tube from a roll of cling-film.

If you can get hold of plastic tubing you will find it both more resilient and more resonant. Different lengths produce different pitches, regardless of the material used. One of the best instruments I have played was assembled at a camp by a friend of mine. It used thick blue gas pipe cut into different lengths and tied to a frame like some enormous set of pan-pipes. A pair of table tennis bats was used to hit the the pipe ends (because flip-flops weren't wide enough to cover the whole hole). Plastic tubes can be struck against the ground or other hard surface to create a pitched sound. In the picture two proprietary tubes (called boom whackers) are being struck against each other to produce a chord.

Making beaters for drums and cymbals

There was a time when it was considered important to teach children to sort instruments into categories such as aerophones, membranophones, idiophones and the like. It can be done in a classroom with lots of kids who, because they never get to touch (or even see more than a picture of) any of the instruments, will not disturb those trying to do maths in the classroom next door. A good five minutes could be spent debating whether a piano was a chordophone (because of its strings) or an idiophone (because the strings are hit with hammers).

Most children, and especially boys, love to hit things. Using a beater rather than a hand allows greater force to be directed to a precise point. This can produce both greater volume and resonance. Most things can be hit with just a stick but this can cause damage, especially to membranophones where the skin (or plastic equivalent) can be punctured.

So before we get into making drums, cymbals and other percussion from material destined for landfill or recycling, let's make some suitable beaters. A plain stick does for many things, especially metal objects. Find your stick, broom handle or whatever and cut it to the appropriate length. Try one foot (30cm) to start with. The thickness of your stick will have a bearing on its suitability. A length of broom handle may be fine for a steel hub-cap (if you are lucky enough to find one in the plastic age) but will be too 'heavy' for a biscuit tin. I'm not saying you can't use a heavy beater for a delicate object but doing so will restrict subtlety.

Wrapping the end of the beater in rubber, cloth or string will soften it. Whereas this is usually undesirable when hitting another wooden object, for many applications it allows the resonance of the instrument to be heard, making a more rounded sound in which the moment of impact is less pronounced. By wrapping one end of the beater in rubber you retain the option of using the hard end if that produces a more pleasing sound.

Javanese and Balinese gamelan makers whip their beaters with cord. I have seen many beaters from African countries that have had pieces of car tyre or bicycle inner tube attached to their ends. It is obviously a question of using what you have to hand. In England the Post Office uses copious amounts of rubber bands to hold letters in bunches to make delivery easier. To avoid breakages and the inconvenience that would entail, they only use each band once. Far be it from me to accuse anyone of littering but many of these end up on the pavement. (Or you can just buy some from a stationers - perhaps a more hygienic option.)




Put your beater through the loop in the band and, starting about a centimetre from the end of the stick, pull the band tight against the wood. Twist the band and loop it over again. Repeat this, twisting and re-looping each time. Add another rubber band and repeat. It's really much more straightforward than it sounds.


The finished beater in the picture was made with a 25cm (10") length of 12mm (half-inch) dowel used six rubber bands. The heads don't fly off like those from the catalogues, maintenance is a no-brainer and, if you involve your students in the making, they will be treated with respect and wielded with pride.