There are lots of ways people can experience music from instruments to singing, and a less known way is body percussion. Body percussion is precisely what it sounds like; it is when you use your body as an instrument! In this video, we see six men use body percussion, and they use their bodies amazingly!
What exactly is body percussion?
Body percussion is when you use your body to make the music but can also be accompanied by dance or other music. Body percussion was one of the first instruments we used, and different types of body percussion can be found all over the world, from Indonesian saman to the hambone from the United States.
Body percussion includes stomping, patting, clapping, and snapping primarily. However, there is also hitting the chest, whistling, snapping, and so on. There are a lot of ways you can use your body to create music.
Who are these body percussionists, and where are they from?
The group we see in the video are Tarambé Percusión Corporal, and they are located in Costa Rica. They are a group of musicians hoping to promote music and movement through body percussion, and they are good at it!
This video starts with them stomping a simple beat, all in sync. Although it is obvious they’re just using their feet to make the music right now; it still sounds like an actual drum.
As the video progresses, so do their body percussion moves.
They soon progress from stomping the feet to slapping their whole body, and it sounds incredible, like something you could dance to! Then the two dancers on the right of the video do their solo parts while the rest of the group waits until they are done.
When they’re done, it moves to the two dancers in the middle to continue the beat and then to the last two dancers. Whenever two of the dancers would finish, the rest of the group would wait in a posed position, so not only are they playing their body as an instrument, but they’re also dancing.
Soon they change the beat, and it just keeps getting better.
They change the beat up to a slower one, with some more claps and slaps to the body. They start incorporating snapping their fingers, which makes the beat sound even better.
Soon they form a single line, and by the way they are clapping and snapping, the dancing looks so cool, almost giving it a kaleidoscope effect. Then they go back to their original positions and sort of doing a dance-off, taking intervals from three on the right and three on the left to carry on the beat.
Then the incredible group goes from playing the beat in sync to creating a waterfall effect.
One of the men starts the beat, which the rest follow one by one, which creates a cooling waterfall effect with the beat. In sync or not, these guys got it going on!
They move on from that beat to create a softer one with the effect of clapping their hands together at an angle. They then finish the performance with a calm rhythm that reminds me of a beat you would hear on freestyle, and it is fantastic!
The Tarambé Percusión Corporal is impressive, and you can follow them on Facebook and Instagram to keep up with all their body percussion dance moves.
Check out this video to watch and hear the beautiful music these guys produce!
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
