Maracas
Maracas (also called rumba balls and rumba rattles , colloquially shortened to "rattles") are South and Central American vessel rattles that belong to the group of idiophones .
The percussion instrument consists of a hollow body with a granular filling; a handle or handle is attached to the body. Originally dried pumpkins were used as the body material. a. Wood, plastic or leather. Dried plant seeds, meal or small pebbles are used as filling.
Maracas are almost always played in pairs. The player grabs them by the handles, shakes them rhythmically in different ways or hits them with the fingertips. This creates the characteristic crackling sound of the instrument. A rare variant of the game is to only hold a rattle in your right hand (for left-handers, in the left) and hit the palm of the other hand.
Depending on the construction and the materials used, the sound of maracas is more or less loud and penetrating. Maracas with fine filling allow quick and precise game, with the volume but not high sound example . Instruments with a coarse filling cannot be played with such an accentuation, but they have a room-filling and considerably louder sound and are particularly suitable for "driving" rhythms (sound example below).
If the two rattles sound different, the deeper and stronger sounding one is played in the right hand and the higher one in the left hand (the other way around for left-handers).
Maracas are mainly used in Latin American music styles such as Son , Salsa , Bolero , Samba or Bossa Nova . But they can also be used in pop , rock , house music and as toy instruments.
When samba and when used as a toy instrument, the maracas are sometimes supplemented by a samba whistle or an ordinary whistle . However, there is a risk that the whistle will sound too “put on” and drown out the rattling. For the combination with a whistle, the loudest possible maracas model is required, which sounds about the same loud as the whistle.
A related instrument is the eggshaker or chicken shake , which is smaller and therefore an alternative e.g. B. represents on the go.
etymology
Maraca is derived from the Guaraní word mbaraka .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Antonio Guasch: Diccionario Castellano-Guarani. Ediciones Loyola, Asuncion 1978.