Folk Toy Fridays - Folk Instruments - Paper Cup Cuicas

Did you know, that the sounds of a soda pop covered, plastic straw being raised, and lowered in a paper cup...





...are very reminiscent of a cuica (kweeka), a Brazilian folk instrument, used for percussion in samba music?

Check out the video above, and then this YouTube video of a cuica, if you don't believe me.

The children managed to get a pretty good range of sounds from their cups, before I had to curtail the music lesson, in response to angry glances coming from the quiet people at the table next to ours (clearly, they were not homeschoolers, or bloggers).

Actual cuicas, or laughing gourds, are open drums with a stick attached to the middle of the drum membrane, that can be rubbed with a wet cloth, to produce a high pitched range of sounds, sort of like the cackling cups we played with last summer. But, the straws in the cup lids, sounded a lot more like the real thing, to me, and were pretty simple to make.

• Fill fast food cups with soda pop.


• Add lids, straws, and children with a few minutes to kill.
  

And, just like that, you have a band, or at least a pretty good percussion section.


It's great to be a homeschooler.