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. 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>Template:Cite web</ref> The instrument is a modern version of the jawbone.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
History
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>Template:Cite 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">Template:Cite web</ref>