Cookin' With The Cabasa

Percussion instruments produce sounds by striking, scraping, and/or shaking.

The small, but versatile cabasa can function in all three areas of tone creation.

The sound producing elements of the cabasa include a ridged metal sheet wrapped around a cylinder that is encircled by strands of metal beads. A handle is attached to one of the flat surfaces of the cylinder and caps at the ends of the cylinder prevent the strands of beads from sliding off the cylinder. The tonal possibilities of the cabasa include sounds reminiscent of guiro, maracas, and shekere.   

Adjustment Tips 

If your beads of your cabasa do not slide easily over the ridged surface, try these conditioning pointers:

 Place the end of a thin rod (such as a triangle beater) under a strand wire and apply pressure to expand the strand slightly. Repeat for all the strands.

 Insert the sharpened end of a pencil under the beads and scrape the pencil along the ridged surface to lay down a coating of graphite that will act as a lubricant.

Grip and Playing Position

The handle of the cabasa can be held with either hand. I prefer to grip the handle with my dominant hand. The rotation technique feels more comfortable with my stronger and more agile hand. 

The main playing position situates the instrument slightly in front of the player's chest near the bottom of the sternum with the handle parallel to the floor. The non-holding hand remains near the cabasa for the striking and scraping techniques.

Tone production

 Striking

Use the four fingers of the free hand to strike the beads. You can tap on the beads closest to the floor or strike the upper area. This is a delicate timbre, but certainly useful.

 Shaking 

Experiment with controlling the beads as you shake the cabasa with a side-to-side motion. With practice, you can control the beads as they slap against the cylinder. This sound is similar to a shaker, but with a tighter articulation.

 Scraping 

Place your free hand palm and fingers on a portion of the beads. You can position your hand under the cylinder or at the upper area. (Check out the video.)

                         

Exert slight pressure against the beads with your free hand and rotate the cabasa cylinder slightly using the handle. You will hear the beads scrape against the ridged metal surface. Rotate the cylinder in the opposite direction to produce another scrape. 

Practice the back-and-forth motion to produce steady streams of eighth and sixteenth notes.

Check out my short video tutorial (on the Worship Training website) to view a demonstration of striking, scraping, and shaking methods for the cabasa.

With experimentation and practice, you will be able to produce scrapes of various lengths. Controlling the note durations is one of the major means of musical phrasing with the cabasa.

As you develop your technique on the cabasa, experiment with creating rhythm patterns in different time signatures and musical styles. Try improvising along with recordings. Build up your repertoire of cabasa licks and be ready to drop some striking, scraping, and shaking into a groove.

2019 Mark Shelton Productions / Percussion For Worship

This article was previously published in Worship Musician magazine.  
www.worshipmusician.com

Rock Cowbell Tone #percussiontiptuesday

Get a solid ROCK tone on the cowbell !!

Thumb Roll Made Easy

If you've ever tried to play a thumb roll on the headed tambourine, you know it can be dangerous.  Your thumb might slide around without producing a roll. Yikes!!

Check out the Roll Ring from Grover Pro Percussion!

Get one of these and never fear the thumb roll.

Natural Acoustics Lab Shaker Demo

Lots of shakers in my collection--different shapes and sizes

Check out this demo of a shaker from Natural Acoustics Lab

                 www.naturalacousticslab.com

Cowbell and Tambourine

Short tutorial on playing cowbell and tambourine at the same time.

Follow me on Instagram and/or Facebook for 

Percussion Tip Tuesday

#percussiontiptuesday

www.instagram.com/marksheltonperc

www.facebook.com/MarkSheltonPerc

Why Percussionists Need Drum Set Skills

The door opened and Mr. Congiardo walked into the practice room. My friend and I had been taking turns exploring the drum set. Our band director had probably heard enough of those feeble attempts to play a groove. Although his primary instrument was the saxophone, Mr. C sat down at the drum kit and proceeded to confidently demonstrate a simple rock beat. His brief presentation was accompanied by some incisive advice to begin practicing his example. It was a major moment in my musical journey.

While I had played percussion in school band for a few years, my studies had not included instruction on drum set--until that day. Further study and practice led to playing drums for jazz ensembles, pit orchestras, big bands, praise and worship groups, and symphony orchestras during the ensuing decades. It is hard to imagine my percussion life without the fundamental abilities to play drum set and understand its workings within an ensemble.

Drum set proficiency is an asset whether I am actually sitting behind the kit, standing in a percussion set-up, or transcribing a groove. Read on and I will state my case for the importance for making “drum set know-how” an essential element of your percussion life.   

Coordination

Percussion frequently requires multi-limb coordination. It can be simply playing a single line between your two hands, but there are moments when each hand is rendering a separate rhythm on a different instrument. Perhaps you decide to toss in a foot tambourine to further complicate the situation. Now you are synching up three limbs!  Playing drum set requires four-way coordination; all limbs are working independently.  Few instruments other than organ and pedal steel guitar so regularly require that multi-limb skill set. The independence gained from playing drum set carries over into those moments when two or three limbs are being employed on a percussion set-up.  Juggling a sixteenth-note shaker pattern along with a few syncopated eighths on a cowbell can seem like a piece of cake after you have been practicing a dense four-part fusion lick on the drum set.  

I highly recommend these classic books to build your multi-limb independence:

Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer by Jim Chapin  Alfred Publishing

4-Way Coordination by Marvin Dahlgren and Elliot Fine   Alfred Publishing

Transcription

Experience with the drum set is beneficial when transcribing a groove. When working in a situation without a kit player, a percussionist might create a part that is based on a drum set groove. When I play in the ‘no drum set’ situation, my set-up is often centered around a cajon. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I will often borrow ideas from a drum set groove and orchestrate portions onto my cajon-based set-up. Kick and snare parts easily transfer to bass tone and corner slaps on “the box.” The ride cymbal and stick-played high-hat lines can be implied on the corners of the cajon or ghosted on the bass tone area. I believe this transcription and orchestration process is made easier when you have experience transcribing and playing drum set grooves.  

Interaction 

It is crucial that the drum set and percussion parts mesh properly to form a solid groove. Timbres and rhythms should combine and complement rather than collide and confuse. It is a delicate interaction. As the percussionist, I generally allow the drum set player to take the more dominant role in establishing the basic framework of the groove and I weave my parts around that framework. A background in studying the drum set informs me as I analyze the drummer's rhythms and timbral choices so that I can find appropriate rhythmic and frequency areas to contribute my ideas. My ‘drum set sense’ helps me to anticipate the musical moments where the drummer will play a fill or a set-up cue so that I can phrase accordingly to forestall cluttering the groove. 

Pinch Hitter

There I was, blissfully minding my own business as I waited to play a simple shaker part for the close of a worship service. Suddenly the drummer got word that his child had been injured. He left church immediately leaving me to play the kit on the closing song.  A sense of relief poured over me when I realized that my duty would merely require laying down a groove that I learned back during the Nixon administration.  

Things happen. People get sick. Tires go flat. Alarms fail. 

Over my years as a church musician, I have abandoned my percussion set-up several times to substitute for an absent drummer.  Would you be ready to knock out a simple pattern if the situation arose? Think about it.  

Increased Opportunities

Adding drum set abilities to your arsenal of percussion skills increases your playing prospects. As I survey the ‘gig landscape,’ it seems there is always someone searching for a kit player. In many styles of music, a drum set player is a necessity while a percussionist rates as an added luxury.  

Of course, make sure that you are up to the gig before you agree to the job. You can't hide when you play drum set!

To further assist you in developing your prowess on the traps, allow me to recommend a valuable resource. Carl Albrecht's Drum Grooves for Worship DVD presents seven essential types of patterns used in modern worship. You can order from   www.carlalbrecht.com. 

Get the DVD and learn all seven grooves. 

I did!

I'm still practicing drum set.  

(c) 2018 Mark Shelton Productions / Percussion for Worship

 Previously published in Worship Musician    www.worshipmusician.com  

Parts Of A Drum Stick

The various areas of a drum stick have names.  Get to know them with this short tour of a drum stick with Mark Shelton

Claves: Get Clickin'

Claves: Get Clickin'

by Mark Shelton

Dynamite comes in a small package.

Within the percussion family you can find small instruments capable of holding their own alongside their bigger brothers and sisters. The jingle and pop from a headed tambourine can punch through a dense mixture of larger drums.  A single triangle ‘ding’ has the power to sit atop the sound of an orchestra comprised of winds, strings, and a pile of percussion. 

Among those petite powerhouses of percussion are the claves. Weighing less than a can of soda pop and just a bit longer than a pencil, the distinctive tone from a pair of hardwood pegs can be clearly heard within a salsa rhythm section crackling with congas, bongos, timbales, and cowbells. 

The traditional Latin American claves are straightforward, equisized dowels. Differing slightly, African claves consist of a ‘receiving stick’ featuring a scooped middle area and a smaller striker peg. This article will focus on the traditional Latin American claves.

Although synthetic models are available, Latin American claves are customarily constructed of hardwoods such as grenadilla, rosewood, maple, or ebony. The dowels range in length from around 8 to 10 inches with a diameter of about an inch. The small dimensions combine with the resonant materials to produce a short, crisp, and high-pitched tone. 

The Traditional Tone

The proper holding method is a crucial part of producing a traditional claves tone. One member of the pair will strike the receiving (stationary) clave. To hold the stationary clave, curl the fingers of your non-dominant hand in towards your palm with the thumb resting against the side of the index finger--resembling how it would look if you were going to knock on a door. This forms an echo chamber for the clave to resonate. Lay the clave over your echo chamber so that the stick rests on your knuckles and the fleshy area just below your thumb. Grip the striker clave in your dominant hand (similar to a loose matched grip). Try a few clicks.

Check out my short video tutorial on the claves

Gripping either clave too tightly will choke vibrations. Your grips are correct when the claves sound with a clear, resonant tone.

Chorale 62 J. S. Bach

"If Thou But Suffer God To Guide Thee" Chorale #62 
by J. S. Bach 



Played with single strikes instead of rolls