Castanets --- great substitute for 80's Hand Claps :-)

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mhschmieder
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Castanets --- great substitute for 80's Hand Claps :-)

Post by mhschmieder »

I've been thinking about buying some nice castanets for a few years now, but was initially confused due to looking at Steve Weiss's site and mostly seeing the mounted ones for orchestral players.

Well, that could be practical, and for orchestral work is necessary due to frequent instrument-switching, but for maximum flexibility you really need not even the hand-held ones with handles (these are the ones that also get mounted) but the traditional ones that loop over your hands.

Turns out they are supposed to come in different-sized pairs, like so many percussion instruments. In this case though, the roles are reversed, as the Hembra is the higher-pitched and the Macho is the lower-pitched pair.

As the more "assertive" bongo or timbale is the higher-pitched one, those are the "Macho" element for those instruments. But for castanets, the lower-pitched one carries the beat and the higher-pitched one is used for fancy rolls.

The two main styles are classic and traditional, or Spanish vs. Italian (I forget in which order). Nuevo Flamenco players stick their nose up at castanets as they aren't "true" flamenco instruments; they're more for tourists.

Anyway, a good pair costs around $150, and can either be synthetic, or preferably grenadilla (the traditional wood), with ebony and rosewood as the most common substitutes. They come in many sizes, for best fitting.

I owned some "folk castanets" many years ago, and LP's pair back in the 90's. Not really sufficient.

I know what to get should I get serious, but those links are at home. For now, of the readily available cheaper ones that are nevertheless pro, Meinl's "flamenco" pair (at $25 vs. their non-flamenco ones at $15) get much better reviews than LP's, so I'll try those out. I don't know if they are properly split for Macho vs. Hembra size though.

I watched some videos and tutorials, and it does seem hard to master castanets properly, but I also think that even semi-amateurish use could be nice here and there vs. typical latin percussion, whether at gigs or on record.

In the meantime, I went through my sample libraries, and of course I have many, but the one that blew the others out of the water was Impact Soundworks Rhapsody Orchestral Percussion.

Unlike most catch-all libraries, this one is DEEP, and also well-researched. They have several types of castanets and materials, as well as playing styles alongside single hits, separated for Hembra vs. Macho. I got excellent results.

So now we get to my title, as I've been moving away from traditional synth sounds while finally polishing up some abandoned material from a decade ago, when I was in a synth-pop revival band. I much prefer having dynamism in my music, with swells and other stuff that just don't come off so organic with synths, even when using controllers.

I'm getting quite sick of the ubiquitous Roland Synth Drum sounds, and even the Oberheim DMX and Linndrum (I always hated the Simmonds stuff). But I was holding on the longest to the TR808 and TR909 Hand Clap sounds... until now.

I am finding that castanets, properly alternating between Hembra and Macho based on steady vs. ornamental articulations, are a wonderful substitute for the well-known hand clap sound, cutting through the mix but with more dynamics, warmth, variation, etc. So, no fatigue as with most synth sounds.

Stuff like claves, temple blocks, wood blocks, etc. never cut it for me in terms of specifically replacing hand claps. Possibly castanets work well in this role because they essentially are in the "Clapper" subcategory of Concussion Idiophones.

Better still would be to learn how to play the real ones properly, and to have a nice pair made by professionals. But for now, Impact Soundworks Rhapsody Orchestral Percussion is my no-longer-hidden secret source.
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mhschmieder
Posts: 11282
Joined: Wed Jul 06, 2005 10:01 pm
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Re: Castanets --- great substitute for 80's Hand Claps :-)

Post by mhschmieder »

In spite of the traditional macho/hembra approach, I decided that I would be unlikely to learn proper technique (I did the usual hippy-folk thing years ago, on any number of low-rent instruments, but have moved on from that era :-)).

I am expecting delivery of a Grover Pro Castanets pair next week, in grenadilla. Grover says he feels they should be the same, like drum sticks. I'll find out if I agree with him; he may have a cultural bias as an orchestral player; whereas my interest is more in a latin and traditional context, where macho/hembra pairs are a critical component of how they are played.

The Grover set can tune the tension, and the sound demos sound great compared to other handle-based pro-level Castanets. But I still think the true traditional ones, with good players, are way better. The problem is, the player is part of the equation, and I'm not that player. :-)
iMac 27" 2017 Quad-Core Intel i5 (3.8 GHz, 64 GB), OSX 13.6.1, MOTU DP 11.31, iZotope RX 10
RME Babyface Pro FS, Radial JDV Mk5, Hammond XK-4, Moog Voyager

Eugenio Upright, 60th Anniversary P-Bass, USA Geddy Lee J-Bass, Yamaha BBP35
Select Strat, 70th Anniversary Esquire, Johhny Marr Jaguar, 57 LP, Danelectro 12
Eastman T486RB, T64/V, Ibanez PM2, D'angelico Deluxe SS Bari, EXL1
Guild Bari, 1512 12-string, M20, Martin OM28VTS, Larivee 0040MH
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