Bones: Ireland musical instrument

The bones are a musical instrument that at the simplest is made up of animal bones, or piece of wood or an analogous material. Sections of large rib bones and lower legs bones are the most commonly used true bone instruments, but wooden sticks shaped like the earlier true bone instruments are now being used. If metal spoons are used, just as it is being used in the United States, it is known as ‘playing the spoons’. The style perhaps came in the United States through Irish and some other European immigrants and has a history broadening back to old China, Rome, Greece and Egypt.

source of picture: world-beats.com

They have donated to several music genres, including the 19^th century minstrel shows, traditional Irish music, the blues, the zydeco, the French-Canadian music, the bluegrass and music from the Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. The clacking of the loose rib bones manufactures as sharper sound than the zydeco washboard that mimics rattling a bone down and up an attached ribcage.

They are characteristically about 5 inches to 7 inches in length, though can be much longer than that, and they are normally curved roughly reminiscent of miniature barrels staves. Bones can also be flat and they are performed by holding the bones between the fingers of the player, convex surfaces facing each other, and the player moving his wrist in such a manner that they bang against each other. The traditional style of playing the musical instrument is by placing the bones to either sides of the middle finger such that roughly 2/3 of their length outspreads along the palm while the remaining part obtrudes above the fingers on the backside of the player’s hand. The hand is held in a loose fist with the bones and curled fingers approximately parallel to the palm of the hand. Normally, the bone closest to the ring finger is mildly held against the palm by the tip of the ring finger positioned on the edge, while the other bone is left to be free to move in the hinge formed by the index finger and the middle finger as they mildly hold it. Also it is possible to perform the hinge on the lower bone while locking the top bone against the palm of the player’s hand.

A player of the musical instrument may use a pair of bones in each hand or just a single pair in one hand of the player.

A critical element to performing the musical instrument is not trying to force them to make indenture with one another via finger manipulations, rather permitting their momentum to perform the function. By moving the hand and forth across the chest, having just enough force on the musical instrument to keep them from falling out of the hand, a patient learner of the musical instrument can be able to manufacture a triple click. This ‘click-it-y’ sound is the important ingredient to playing the musical instrument. A double click can be manufactured by the same movement of the hand with the toting of a bit of pressure to the musical instruments to overturn the third click. Once these elemental triple and double figures have been grasped, they can be joined to manufacture complex permutation of rhythmic sounds from the bones. The effect is further improved by the use of two pairs of bones, having one bone on each hand. A skilled player of the musical instrument can manufacture a wide range of percussive sounds evocative of those made by a tap dancer.

The Irish tradition is distinctive to the island. While the North American players of the musical instrument are typically two-handed, the Irish tradition finds the vast majority of players of the instrument making use of only one hand as they play the bones, a difference in technique that has a strong impact on the musical articulation.

A comparison of the role of the banjo with that of the bones within a group proposes that stereotypically, a subdivided accompaniment style is performed on the musical instrument.