The feet and hands as musical (percussion) instruments

As any flamenco dancer, tap dancer, dancer doing Afro-Peruvian zapateo, and dancer of many other forms of dance can tell you, the feet can and often are used as musical instruments.  It amazes me the kinds of sounds you can get out of using your feet.  Every time I think I´ve come to the end of the possibilities in flamenco, I see a performance in which new possibilities are offered.

Not just for walking around.  Also for making music.

 And many dancers add other parts of the body to the sounds made by the feet:  clapping hands, slapping your knee with your hand, and so forth.

It´s possible, and for some people (including myself), very pleasurable to spend long periods of time imagining different patterns of sounds you can make with your feet.  There´s a visual aspect as well:  if you hit the floor with the tip of your toe, it makes a specific kind of sound.  If you do it three times in a row, with your toe at a different angle with respect to the foot that´s on the ground, the sound changes AND the look changes.

In a later post, I'll include some feet rhythm sounds but for now, I want to introduce to you what can be done with hands beating on a table.  Sure, you've done it before, but this is done by a MASTER.



I remember when one of my kids was around 8 years old and told me he was interested in playing the drums.  He wanted me to purchase a full drum set for him.  I countered that he should play drums for several months before I bought him any.  I was perfectly happy to give him lessons (which I did) and buy him a practice head but didn´t understand why I should purchase a complete drum set before we saw how serious he was.

Inside my head, I was secretly thinking--if this kid loves drums so much, why isn´t he drumming on the table, and banging spoons together, and tapping the window with his fingers?  Because drumming is rhythm, and you don´t need a drum set to make rhythm.

Rhythm is an essential part of life.  We all know that our heart has its own rhythm.  That rhythm is something we hear so constantly that we rarely notice it.  Our breathing has a rhythm, which changes according to the level at which we´re exerting ourselves.  The change between day and night has a rhythm.  The movement from one season to another is a kind of rhythm.

Since rhythm is an essential part of life, deliberately using the feet and hands to make different rhythms is a natural response to the world.  It easily becomes a part of music.  It is, in fact, where music MEETS dance.

OUR NEXT POST will be about the CD we´re about to produce of flamenco cante (singing) by Antonio de la Malena.