Musical Instruments often start out as accidental discoveries, that evolve over time, but their ultimate form as a developed musical instrument was never an intention of the original designer or its original purpose. Here are some quick examples of instruments that have evolved into percussion that is of performance quality.
Cajón – Wooden Box Drum – Peru and Cuba
The Cajón is a wooden box drum, typically consisting of a six-paneled plywood box with one face that is a thinner membrane of wood, and a hole cut on the opposing face for resonance. It is said to have been developed in Peru. African slaves displaced from their homeland once substituted cod shipping crates for their native drums and started the development of the Cajón . Small dressers and drawers were used for the same purpose for a similar instrument in Cuba . Over time, the instrument has evolved from a simple shipping crate into a fine-tuned instrument whose quality is judged by many factors and craftsmanship and beauty have become factors of good Cajón. The Cajón is contemporarily used in “unplugged” performances by western bands that typically use amplifiers and full drum kits.
Plastic Bucket and Water Bottle Drummers – USA
On the streets of many big cities, you will often see a great sight – people who have taken old plastic 5-gallon buckets, shopping carts, large blue water bottles, and trash cans and arrange them into a “drumset” in which they can achieve different tones based on size and volume and resonance of the given container that has been turned upside down. The designer of such packaging probably never took into account the resonance of a given bucket or bottle in his design process.\
Steel Pans – Trinidad
Steel Pans (also known as Steel Drums) originated in the Trinidad, where used oil drums would be hammered into scalloped areas in which individual, tunable tones could be achieved when struck with a bamboo stick. Over the years, this evolution of a simple steel oil barrel into a defined and respected musical form, is so deep-rooted in the history of the region that the sound of such percussion reminds us so.
Average Kid – Everywhere
Every kid had at least one day when he went to the kitchen, got some kitchen utensils and started banging away on mom’s pots and pans on the floor. It is almost natural instinct for children to find other ways of using products because there is not a strictly set standard of how to use a given object, but only that of natural instinct. I think it is a healthy and refreshing design practice to place your product in the hands of a child to see what he does with it.
Spoons – USA
Spoons are a part of American folk music in which two eating spoons are held in opposing directions and struck against the hand and leg to create a percussive sound and has held up in its importance over the years. They now have new spoons that are conjoined at the handle specifically made for playing.
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