congaplace.com

Completed my first shekere last night. Its far from perfect, but I got a good feel for it now, and think the next try will turn out better. How do you guys finish yours when you get to the bottom of the net? I tied all of my strings to a loop of string on the bottom, which worked, but I'm unhappy with the way it turned out. The strings are too tight at the bottom and chokes out a lot of the sound.

I like how you did the top ring, with beads, I haven't seen that technique before.
It's kind of an art figuring out how tight to make the net of beads around the
shekere for the best sound.

I had originally started it without the beads around the neck, but I was having trouble spacing my strings. My knots kept sliding and bunching up in one spot, so I used the beads for spacing, 1 string between each bead. It worked well and I was happy with the way it looks.

I loosened up the bottom ring and was able to get a much better sound. Over all I'm pretty happy with my first go at it. Ready to try some different things.

deadhead wrote:

I loosened up the bottom ring and was able to get a much better sound. Over all I'm pretty happy with my first go at it. Ready to try some different things.

Exactly what I was going to suggest, it does need some space to float around to make the desired sound.

Great effort there.

Another technique Ive seen used alot is a light rope sewn at the ends to tie off from at the top.

What I suggest is that when you get to the fattest part of the gourd, come down straight and go past the bottom and finally tighten with a string . Is a trial and error kind of thing. I like to leave a tail on mine as it looks impressive on stage. My 2 bits.
Paz
Olsongo

Looks greatDeadhead congrats i hope to try my hand at making one soon.