Clave' Sticks

[Marcus]

I started with the regular high pitched clave sticks, rosewood and they are great. Then I noticed others are a bit larger with a cutout in the center and holes drilled in each end. So I mail ordered those, they arrived and as expected the lower pitched tone I seem to like better.

Now I have just noticed that some of these larger clave sticks with cutout have the hole drill all the way through and the cutout has exposed the drilled hole. So here are another style.

I suspect that if I drill through the tone pitch maybe a bit lower but unsure.

Appreciate any advice.

thx, marcus

[Thebreeze]

Hey Marcus...I experimented quite a bit with different types of woods. It all started one day when I decided to make my own claves. I bought 2 pieces of cocobolo through a woodworker in ebay. Anyway, he said he could make the claves for me on his lathe and that started me buying different woods, and having him lathe the claves for me. I tried cocobolo, rosewood, ebony, purpleheart, and others. One set that really stuck out was a small 3/4" x 8" or so if I remember correctly, of purpleheart. They just had that nice sound.

As far as the other type of Clave you are referring to, I also tried to make my own one of those and it turned out quite interesting. I went to some second hand stores and over in their housewares section you can usually find some nice older Rolling Pins and they are usually made out of nice hardwood if you get the better ones. People donate these and you should be able to find a nice one. One that I found had the Handles with little ball bearings and they were on a rod that went all the way through the rolling pin. These are the nicer more expensive types. I removed the handles and since I don't have the proper woodshop type tools I used a semi circle wood rasp and made the concave part that exposes the hole like you mentioned. It turned out nice but more experimentation was needed like maybe making it a little shorter in lenght, etc. Anyway, I bet you will have fun trying one for yourself. Hope this helps.

[Marcus]

I never got to drilling out the end holes in my clave sticks. I ended up cupping the cutout with my index fingers and leaving an small open space near my little finger. Gave it a wack and wow, there was the inmensely deep rich tone. All in the way one holds the clave stick. Was a bit surprised. Finess, english, style--what ever you call it, these have become my favorite clave sticks.

peace marcus

[Tone]

the hollowed one with the cut out is called clave Africana in Cuba, the solid sticks are just called clave