Shekere

Template: Infobox musical instrument / Maintenance / parameter is missing pitch range

The SHEKERE or Chekere is an African American rattle from West Africa, which has spread to several countries in Central and South America and of which there are several variations and different names.

The body consists of a calabash, an empty, dry and hard squash fruit that acts as a loudspeaker and is stretched around which a network of seed beads, cowries or plastic balls. In the African variant of this network is closed down while the bottom remains open in the Cuban version, to serve as the face and at the Brazilian turn the network is completely open. When SHEKERE the neck of the gourd is removed, which distinguishes it from the related family Axatse that is smaller and the neck is not cut off. Instead of the bottle gourd also industrially manufactured fiberglass pieces are offered.

There are the following options:

• SHEKERE ( Cuban music )
• Xequerê ( Brazilian music )
• Xequebúm ( Brazilian music, large version)
• Agbe (Nigeria )