Pogo cello
Encyclopedia
Percussion instrument
A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
in the idiophone
Idiophone
An idiophone is any musical instrument which creates sound primarily by way of the instrument's vibrating, without the use of strings or membranes. It is the first of the four main divisions in the original Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification...
family. This instrument
Musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...
can be heard in the skiffle bands
Skiffle
Skiffle is a type of popular music with jazz, blues, folk, roots and country influences, usually using homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a term in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, it became popular again in the UK in the 1950s, where it was mainly...
of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, jug band
Jug band
A Jug band is a band employing a jug player and a mix of traditional and home-made instruments. These home-made instruments are ordinary objects adapted to or modified for making of sound, like the washtub bass, washboard, spoons, stovepipe and comb & tissue paper...
s from the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, as well as some blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, bluegrass
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
, folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
and rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
bands. Notable music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
al groups or persons using the pogo cello in their music are Jim Kweskin's Jug Band
Jim Kweskin
Jim Kweskin is the founder of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, with Fritz Richmond, Mel Lyman, and Geoff and Maria Muldaur...
, Mojo Nixon
Mojo Nixon
Mojo Nixon is an American musician, known for playing psychobilly music...
, and Redd Fox, the famous comedian
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...
/singer who starred as Fred Sanford in the television show Sanford and Son
Sanford and Son
Sanford and Son is an American sitcom, based on the BBC's Steptoe and Son, that ran on the NBC television network from January 14, 1972, to March 25, 1977....
.
Description
The pogo cello is also known as or very similar to a; devil's stick, bumbassBumbass
The bladder fiddle is a folk instrument used throughout Europe. The instrument was a simple large monochord made with a long stick, a thick gut string, and a pig's bladder. It is bowed with either a notched stick or a horsehair bow...
, stump fiddle, devil's violin, bladder and string, stick zither, basse de Flandre, jingling johnny, lagerphone, Turkish crescent
Turkish crescent
A Turkish crescent, is an elaborate percussion instrument traditionally used by military bands...
, Chapeau Chinois, Pavillon Chinois. The pogo cello, being a homemade folk instrument
Folk instrument
A folk instrument is an instrument that developed among common people and usually doesn't have a known inventor. It can be made from wood, metal or other material. It is a part of folk music...
, has a configuration that is somewhat open to interpretation depending on the individual who creates it.
A typical description of the parts that might make a pogo cello are:
- A broomBroomA broom is a cleaning tool consisting of stiff fibers attached to, and roughly parallel to, a cylindrical handle, the broomstick. It is thus a variety of brush with a long handle. It is commonly used in combination with a dustpan....
handle, pole, or a six-foot 2x3 piece of lumberLumberLumber or timber is wood in any of its stages from felling through readiness for use as structural material for construction, or wood pulp for paper production....
. - A springSpring (device)A spring is an elastic object used to store mechanical energy. Springs are usually made out of spring steel. Small springs can be wound from pre-hardened stock, while larger ones are made from annealed steel and hardened after fabrication...
fastened to the bottom of the wood. - A cookie tinTin boxA tin box, or tin for short, is a metal container with a re-closeable lid. Despite its name, a tin box seldom involves more tin than a thin plated layer whose purpose is to inhibit corrosion.-Construction:...
, tambourineTambourineThe tambourine or marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all....
, or any similar resonating device. - A length of baling wireBaling wireBaling wire, otherwise known as "farm wire" or "soft wire," is used in an agricultural setting and industrial setting for everything from mending fences to manually binding square bales of hay, straw, or cut grass...
, attached to the top and bottom of the wood, stretched across the cookie tin or resonatorResonatorA resonator is a device or system that exhibits resonance or resonant behavior, that is, it naturally oscillates at some frequencies, called its resonant frequencies, with greater amplitude than at others. The oscillations in a resonator can be either electromagnetic or mechanical...
. - Any miscellaneous noisemakers that an individual might choose to attach anywhere on the pogo cello.
The instrument is thrust to the floor to make a bass drum
Bass drum
Bass drums are percussion instruments that can vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums can be distinguished. The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum . It is the largest drum of...
sound, and a length of baling wire attached to a cookie tin is struck or bowed
Bow (music)
In music, a bow is moved across some part of a musical instrument, causing vibration which the instrument emits as sound. The vast majority of bows are used with string instruments, although some bows are used with musical saws and other bowed idiophones....
with a long threaded stick or dowel
Dowel
A dowel is a solid cylindrical rod, usually made of wood, plastic or metal. In its original manufactured form, dowel is called dowel rod.Dowel rod is employed in numerous, diverse applications. It is used to form axles in toys, as detents on gymnastics grips, as knitting needles, as structural...
to make a snare drum
Snare drum
The snare drum or side drum is a melodic percussion instrument with strands of snares made of curled metal wire, metal cable, plastic cable, or gut cords stretched across the drumhead, typically the bottom. Pipe and tabor and some military snare drums often have a second set of snares on the bottom...
sound.
History
The pogo cello was created in the 1950s in Brooklyn, New York by a chemist, Mack Perry, the husband of a music educator, Sylvia Perry. Perry patterned it after a similar instrument called a bumbassBumbass
The bladder fiddle is a folk instrument used throughout Europe. The instrument was a simple large monochord made with a long stick, a thick gut string, and a pig's bladder. It is bowed with either a notched stick or a horsehair bow...
(boombas, boomba, or boom bass) also known as a stump fiddle (or stumpf fiddle). Pogocellos were manufactured in Brooklyn and Far Rockaway, New York and in New Jersey. The pogocello was sold in the United States for decades as a musical instrument for children, but many adults also bought them for themselves.
Pogocellos have been seen in marching bands in Iowa and in the Mummers' parade in Philadelphia, PA on New Year's Day. Similar instruments may be found today in Australia, Czechoslovakia and in Sweden (a Devil's fiddle or Devil's stick) and in other countries, for example at Oktoberfests. They have been played in blues, soul, bluegrass and other kinds of musical groups. Television show host, Garry Moore
Garry Moore
Garry Moore was an American entertainer, game show host and comedian best known for his work in television...
, played one on his show in the 1950s. Since 1975 the Gloucester Hornpipe and Clog Society, an American traditional music group which plays Celtic, French Canadian, Appalachian, nautical, and other kinds of folk music, has featured a pogocello made by woodcarver Rita Dunipace, and pogocello player David "Doc" Rosen.
Further reading
- Andrews, Frances M. and Clara E. Cockerille. Your School Music Program: A Guide To Effective Curriculum Development. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1958.
- Langdon, Grace and Irving W. Stout. Helping Parents Understand Their Child's School: A Handbook For Teachers. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1957.
- Association for Childhood Education International. "Membership Service Bulletin". Bulletin of the Association for Childhood Education. Issue 96. 1955