Hit it, Baby!

Are you used to expressing yourself with your hands? Do you like to play around with things and know how it feels like? Do you like to hit things when you are mad or if when you just want to make some sounds? Well, what are thinking of? Better start now!

Start buying or investing on percussion instruments that are played by hitting it with your bare hands. One thing I will remind you is that these kinds of instruments are very luxurious because it is very expensive yet very sensitive and prone to damage.

With the typical drum set, whatever sound it produces, that’s it. This drum set basically just produces the beat and meter of the music. As for the percussion instruments, even though it is only a single-hand drum, it produces many sounds thus creating rhythm. For practicality, you can actually carry this anywhere you go.

This is what you call a “darbuka”. This goblet-shaped, single-headed drum is popular in Arab countries and is the cousin to the Turkish doumbek, another instrument that is made out of wood with a tambourine inside. The base is made of a solid piece of aluminum or nickel and can come engraved or with covering material (Modern Drummer, April 1997). According to Dj, our very nice friend and soon-to-be popular, this usually costs 200 pounds in London. The original darbuka comes from Egypt and the skin used to cover this is the skin of the fish. But due to weather conditions and this drum being sensitive, they came with a new synthetic material, usually acetates, to replace the skin of the fish.

This is another percussion instrument called “shekeres,” pronounce it as SHE-ke-ray or CHE-ke-ray. Traditionally from Africa, shekeres are gourds covered with a woven beaded webbing, combining the three different elements of shaken, twisted, and hit on their bottom side to produce deep, resonant bass notes. Today they can be found made of durable synthetic materials. This usually costs 6000-9000 pesos for imported but if want a cheaper and traditional ethnic instrument, the band members of Pinikpikan make this instrument for the price of 1000 pesos only.

The gangsa has a Filipino traditional background. This came from the Ifugaos and can be found in Baguio. As for the djembe, rainsticks and ashiko can be also found in the country because there are already Filipino second-hand Artisan who make them,

Some percussion instruments that Dj has are bongos, conga drums, djembe, frame drums, gourd guiros, rainstick, agogo bells, maracas, doumbek, ashiko, afuche cabasa, tubano, timbales, gangsa, and castanets. In Mindanao, you can find the kulintang used by the Maranaos.

These kinds of instruments can be found with different ethnic designs. Some are shiny black with white drawings, some have colorful patterns with blue, orange and red strokes. Some even have the usual black and brown ethnic patterns. These are sold in different sizes too.