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Monkey Man's Drum Beats

Overall rating (6 ratings)
Calcuttan

June 25th, 2013

Follow
Soundscapes > Urban
1-minute Calcutta

India has many street entertainers. One of them is the man who roams the cities with monkeys on chain showing tricks for children. It is a banned activity now but they still manage to roam the streets, though far less in number than when we were children.
They carry a double-headed drum called damru in Hindi. In Calcutta it is called dug dugi. It's a double headed drum of about 6 inches where the sound is produced by two chords tied to the waist of the drum which is struck on the head of the drum by the player who twists his wrist to do it. I hope it makes some sense to whoever reads it. It has some religious significance in both India and Tibet.
This sound is produced by monkey trick guys to attract pedestrians' attention. I suppose the monkeys are also trained to respond to the sound and show certain tricks. If you are an animal lover it is a pathetic scene. But children seem to derive pleasure out of it.
I recorded this with my Edirol R09HR and its internal mic on Calcutta's Park Street on a Sunday afternoon. Here he is just walking the street and trying to draw attention. If he finds enthusiastic takers he will stop and start showing the trick. This sound is important because this profession is not going to last for a long time.

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Calcutta
damru
double-headed-drum
Edirol
India
monkey-tricks
R09HR
street-entertainer
street-sound

Type

AIFF (.aiff)

Duration

0:20.724

File size

7.6 MB

Sample rate

96000.0 Hz

Bit depth

16 bit

Channels

Stereo

Comments
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littlepsaya

10 years ago

i like the sound too.

D
dveerman

11 years, 5 months ago

Thanks for this sound and above all, your background story.

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