Clapstick
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Clapsticks, also spelt clap sticks and also known as bilma, bimli, clappers, musicstick or just stick, are a traditional Australian Aboriginal instrument. They serve to maintain rhythm in voice chants, often as part of an Aboriginal ceremony.[1]
They are a type of drumstick, percussion mallet or claves that belongs to the idiophone category. Unlike drumsticks, which are generally used to strike a drum, clapsticks are intended for striking one stick on another.
Origin and nomenclature
[edit]In northern Australia, clapsticks would traditionally accompany the didgeridoo, and are called bimli or bilma by the Yolngu people of north-east Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia.
Boomerang clapsticks
[edit]Boomerang clapsticks are similar to regular clapsticks but they can be shaken for a rattling sound or be clapped together.
Technique
[edit]The usual technique employed when using clapsticks is to clap the sticks together to create a rhythm that goes along with the song.
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Rare Music Collection, University of Melbourne Library. "Bilma (clapsticks), from the Northern Territory" (PDF). The University of Melbourne. The University of Melbourne. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
External links
[edit]- A survey of traditional south-eastern Australian Indigenous music by Barry McDonald (book chapter)
- Moyle, Alice M. (1978). Aboriginal Sound Instruments (PDF). Aboriginal SoundInstrumentsAlice M MoyleCompanion Booklet for a CompaCt DisCAustralian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. ISBN 9781922059468.
- "Clapsticks". University of Melbourne. 21 June 2017.
- "1788 - Meet Waruwi: Clapping sticks". My Place. Australian Broadcasting Corporation/. 24 December 1999.
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