More Tinkering

Chapter 21 Lakadou

Make a sonorous knock-off of Timor-Leste’s amazing bamboo stringed instrument. CREDIT: Ros Dunlop

Timor-Leste is home to several interesting musical instruments, among them the lakadou, which would fit somewhere between the string section and the percussion section in an orchestra. The cords stretched from end to end of the huge bamboo section are actually the skin of the bamboo itself, carefully cut and lifted out, and held to vibrate above the main tube by small bits of sticks at either end. The incredible part to me is how it is tunable by pressing on the stick bits. You strum it with another chip of bamboo or coconut ...