Vibraslap
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The vibraslap is a percussion instrument consisting of a piece of stiff wire (bent into a U-shape) connecting a wooden ball to a hollow box of wood with metal "teeth" inside. The percussionist holds the metal wire in one hand and strikes the ball (usually against the palm of their other hand). The box acts as a resonating body for a metal mechanism placed inside with a number of loosely fastened pins or rivets that vibrate and rattle against the box.<ref name="Virginia Tech Online Music Dictionary">"Vibra-Slap", Music.VT.edu. URL last accessed December 11, 2009.</ref> The instrument is a modern version of the jawbone.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
HistoryEdit
The vibraslap comes from the African jawbone instrument. This is the lower jawbone of a donkey or a zebra which has loose teeth that rattle when the instrument is struck.<ref>Karl Peinkofer and Fritz Tannigel, Handbook of Percussion Instruments, (Mainz, Germany: Schott, 1976), 159.</ref> The instrument was carried by enslaved people to South America where it became known as the jawbone (quijada in Spanish).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It became used in Latin American music in the ensuing centuries.
The modern vibraslap was invented by Martin Cohen in 1967.<ref name="Percussion Instrument, US Patent 3439572">Template:Cite patent</ref>Template:Better source Cohen was told by percussionist Bobby Rosengarden, "If you want to make some money, make a jawbone that doesn't break." About the inventing process, Cohen remembers, "I had never seen a jawbone before, but I had heard one on a Cal Tjader album. I found out that it was an animal skull that you would strike, and the sound would come from the teeth-rattling in the loose sockets. So I took that concept and invented the Vibraslap, which was my first patent."<ref name="Percussive Arts Society Interview">"PASIC 2012 Template:Webarchive", PAS.org. URL last accessed December 11, 2009.</ref> The vibraslap was the first patent granted to the instrument manufacturing company Latin Percussion.<ref name="Steve Weiss Music Products: Vibraslap Description">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
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