What's That Sound? The Sistrum

by Beth Dolinar

We at Luminari love music of all kinds: folk, symphony, hip hop, jazz, blues, country, marches, gospel, rock and roll—we enjoy all of it.

Because our mission is to broaden minds and promote innovation, we think it’s important—and fun—to open our minds to the possibilities of the world beyond our own doorstep.  And what better way to do that than to learn about the music of other lands.

In each issue of LUMOS!, we offer a regular series about the unique and unusual (and sometimes downright strange) instruments we’ve never heard. And since we can’t really understand an instrument until we’ve heard it being played, we’ll offer links to sites where you can hear and see a performance.

And so we offer our second in a series of unusual instruments: the sistrum.

Do you remember that box of rhythm instruments you played in grade school music class? If you had been an ancient Egyptian grade schooler, you would have found a sistrum in that box.

***

If a tambourine and an abacus were to procreate, the offspring might look like the sistrum.

The sistrum is a musical instrument dating back to the ancient Egyptians. As with much of what was built or invented during those times, the sistrum was meant to placate a diety—in this case, Hathor, the horned cow-goddess of love. Hieroglyphs from that time often depict women holding sistrums.

The instrument is typically made of wood or metal, shaped in an oval and spanned by thin bars on which slide thin metal discs. When shaken the sistrum creates a soft jangling that resembles breeze blowing through papyrus reeds, a sound which, apparently, the cow-goddess enjoyed.

The closest cousin to a sistrum would be the modern tambourine, whose noisemakers orbit a skin drum. The sistrum has no such drum, and therefore the player does not strike it.

To play the sistrum correctly, you hold it upright and shake it in a forward-back motion. Centuries ago, the sistrum was played at fertility rituals. Today, you might hear it played in a Berlioz opera or, more likely, in worship music at an Ethiopian Orthodox Church. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistrum

Here is a link to a group of Ethopian men playing sistrums in worship music:

***

Luminari Coordinator, Beth Dolinar brings her talents and experience as a writer, Emmy-award producer, public speaker and deadline driven multi-tasker to our team. She writes a popular column for the Washington "Observer-Reporter." She is a contributing producer of documentary length programming for WQED-TV on a wide range of topics and currently teaches as an adjunct faculty member at Robert Morris University. Beth has a son and a daughter. She is an avid yoga devotee, cyclist and reader. Beth says she types like lightning but reads slowly -- because she likes a really good sentence.