I'm putting this shekere up for sale. It was intended to be part of a set, but between selling the littlest shekere of the set to my close friend because he REALLY wanted it, and my frustration with beading the middle gourd, it is time for this one to move on.
This is a really excellent sounding shekere. The open tone has a great voice, and I've used some larger beads that give the shake sound a nice deep and solid sound. This shekere has an old schoolsound, like the shekeres you hear in the Mongo Santamaria recordings on Afro Roots.
I was able to get this gourd very very clean on the inside. I don't cut my gourds in half to clean them. I painstakingly use a variety of home made tools to clean it. The inside gets a light coat of polyurethane for strength and to increase the volume, but not so much to increase the weight. The outside gets a coat of Danish Oil for protection and to improve the appearance. Finally, the thicker rope with the tassles, kind of a trademark of mine, is there to provide a kind of cushion, to keep your hands from striking the beads when playing an open tone on the bottom. That can be painful
I take PayPal and ship overseas.
