A bungkaka, also known as the bamboo buzzer is a

percussion instrument A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Excl ...

(

idiophone An idiophone is any musical instrument that creates sound primarily by the vibration of the instrument itself, without the use of air flow (as with aerophones), strings (chordophones), membranes (membranophones) or electricity ( electrophones) ...

) made out of

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, ...

common in numerous indigenous tribes around the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

such as the

Ifugao Ifugao, officially the Province of Ifugao ( ilo, Probinsia ti Ifugao; tl, Lalawigan ng Ifugao), is a landlocked province of the Philippines in the Cordillera Administrative Region in Luzon. Its capital is Lagawe and it borders Benguet to the ...

, Kalinga, and Ibaloi.

Construction

The instrument is constructed from a length of buho (bamboo) with a node at the bottom end. The upper half is shaped such that there are two tongues facing each other, while the bottom end acts as a resonator chamber.

Playing

The instrument generates a buzzing sound from the slit between the two tongues when the instrument is struck against the lower palm of the hand of the player. Furthermore, the sound can be altered by covering and uncovering a hole found on the bottom half of the instrument with the thumb of the hand which grasps the instrument.

References

{{reflist Idiophones Culture of Ifugao Culture of Kalinga (province) Culture of Benguet Philippine musical instruments Bamboo musical instruments