Clapsticks, also spelt clap sticks and also known as bilma, bimli, clappers, musicstick or just stick, are a traditional Australian Aboriginal instrument. They serve to maintain rhythm in voice chants, often as part of an Aboriginal ceremony.[1]
They are a type of drumstick, percussion mallet or claves that belongs to the idiophone category.
Unlike drumsticks, which are generally used to strike a drum, clapsticks are intended for striking one stick on another.
^Rare Music Collection, University of Melbourne Library. "Bilma (clapsticks), from the Northern Territory" (PDF). The University of Melbourne. The University of Melbourne. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
External links
A survey of traditional south-eastern Australian Indigenous music by Barry McDonald (book chapter)
Moyle, Alice M. (1978). Aboriginal Sound Instruments (PDF). Aboriginal SoundInstrumentsAlice M MoyleCompanion Booklet for a CompaCt DisCAustralian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. ISBNÂ 9781922059468.
"Clapsticks". University of Melbourne. 21 June 2017.
"1788 - Meet Waruwi: Clapping sticks". My Place. Australian Broadcasting Corporation/. 24 December 1999.