An egg shaker or

ganzá The ''ganzá'' () is a Brazilian rattle used as a percussion instrument, especially in samba music. The ''ganzá'' is cylindrically shaped, and can be either a hand-woven basket or a metal canister which is filled with beads, metal balls, pebbl ...

is a

hand percussion Hand percussion is a percussion instrument that is held in the hand. They can be made from wood, metal or plastic, bottles stops and are usually shaken, scraped, or tapped with fingers or a stick. It includes all instruments that are not drums o ...

instrument, in the

idiophone An idiophone is any musical instrument that creates sound primarily by the vibration of the instrument itself, without the use of air flow (as with aerophones), strings (chordophones), membranes (membranophones) or electricity ( electroph ...

category, that makes a noise when shaken. Functionally it is similar to a

maraca A maraca (), sometimes called shaker or chac-chac, is a rattle which appears in many genres of Caribbean and Latin music. It is shaken by a handle and usually played as part of a pair. Maracas (from Guaraní ), also known as tamaracas, were ...

. Typically the outer casing or container is ovoidal or egg-shaped. It is partially full of small, loose objects, such as seeds or beads, which create the percussive sounds as they collide, both with each other and with the inside surface of the container. The egg shaker is a

Latin American Latin Americans ( es, Latinoamericanos; pt, Latino-americanos; ) are the citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their diasporas are multi-eth ...

instrument, cheap to buy and relatively simple to play.

Playing styles

The egg shaker can be played in a number of ways. It can be shaken up and down to create a fast percussion line or from side to side creating a slightly different sound. It is used alongside other instruments like maracas, but also in samba groups and mariachi bands using instruments such as the

drumkit A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumstick ...

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

, the

vihuela The vihuela () is a 15th-century fretted plucked Spanish string instrument, shaped like a guitar (figure-of-eight form offering strength and portability) but tuned like a lute. It was used in 15th- and 16th-century Spain as the equivalent of t ...

guitarrón Guitarrón or guitarron is a common name for a number of stringed instruments found in Latin America and may refer to: * Guitarrón argentino, a six-stringed musical instrument from Argentina * Guitarrón chileno, a 25-stringed, plucked instrument ...

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

, occasionally acoustic guitar or

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gu ...

, and the

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...

Construction

The egg shaker is created with a

plastic Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Their plasticity makes it possible for plastics to be moulded, extruded or pressed into solid objects of various shapes. This adaptab ...

mould, the main shape created in two halves. One half is filled with metal

bead A bead is a small, decorative object that is formed in a variety of shapes and sizes of a material such as stone, bone, shell, glass, plastic, wood, or pearl and with a small hole for threading or stringing. Beads range in size from under ...

s or

seed A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering, along with a food reserve. The formation of the seed is a part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, the spermatophytes, including the gymnosperm and angiospe ...

s and then both halves are fitted together. Another sound can be made by holding the shaker in the palm of the hand tightly, then opening it whilst shaking it up and down. This makes a whirling sound not possible with other percussion instruments.

Availability

Egg shakers are available in a number of colours, and are sold in most

music shop A music store or musical instrument store is a retail business that sells musical instruments and related equipment and accessories. Some music stores sell additional services, such as music lessons, music instrument or equipment rental, or re ...

s at a reasonably low price, due to the use of inexpensive materials like

and seeds. They are often sold in packets alongside other similar percussion instruments such as maracas,

tambourine The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though ...

finger cymbal Zills or zils (from Turkish 'cymbals'), also called finger cymbals, are small metallic cymbals used in belly dancing and similar performances. They are called () in Egypt. They are similar to Tibetan tingsha bells. In Western music, several pai ...

s etc.

External links

Musical Egg Shakers
Shaken idiophones or rattles {{Rattle-stub