Educating beyond the teaching

 Native Americans and their culture have interested me throughout the years growing up in school. Around 2nd or 3rd grade, my elementary school took a field trip to a NC reservation to help educate us and bring awareness to the culture that once was the majority of the United States. One of the instruments that stuck with me was the clapper stick. The clapper stick is a traditional idiophone used be the native american people to keep the tempo for singers. It is used to keep pace a lot like metronome. According to an article from White Crow Flutes, the instrument also known as the clapstick and split stock, is made from a branch of an elderberry tree and is hollowed out to produce percussion when smacked together. The article also expressed, which i thought was very interesting was that Native Americans often used bamboo instead of elderberry tree branches because bamboo is naturally hollow while elderberry branches are not. 

While looking for the next percussion instrument in the different cultures we have studied I found the next instrument that I connected with that I thought of right off the bat was the Claves. Claves were commonly played in my school and maybe even yours. Like the clapsticks, claves are a percussion idiophone consisting of two sticks to create the tempo beats. The video explains how to play this instrument step-by-step. This instrument is still used in today's modern and traditional music in all customs or cultures. But this was originated by the Afro-Cuban people. I inferred because of the simplicity of the instrument allowed the claves to withstand all the cultural shifts. A difference between these instruments is that the claves have an indention on one stick where the other stick is supposed to be hit against.

While thinking of the last instrument to talk about, I got to thinking of the Andean people and the areas they lived in and how it impacted the main instruments they had. Yes, they lived in areas that were hard to get to and caused them to not bring heavier instruments along, but in reality, they use everything from idiophones, aerophones and chordophones. Their instruments tended to be made with resources from animals they killed. They did not want to let the bones go to waste, so a lot of them created instruments with them. One of these instruments is called a Pinkillo. When i was doing some research, the Pinkillo was mentioned a ton and seemed like a big part of the history of the Incan people. It is made up on a cane, bamboo, animal bone or tree branches. What i found really interesting about this instrument over every other one was the fact that this is meant to be played one handed to leave the other hand free to play another instrument, normally an idiophone.