Adam Fox

1935 Asante African Drum

This drum was made in Africa and was made circa 1935. This drum was used for ceremonies including weddings, parties, funerals, and a lot of other things. On the instrument there is a few stars, a heart, and a rooster.

My Unfinished Boomtube Instrument

This instrument is a percussion instrument and is played by dropping the closed end on the ground. I made this out of PVC Tubing that is about 5'4'' and the symbols are made of permanent markers. The challenges I faced were designing it. It was a real pain in the neck to think of symbols for it or like what colors they should be, because at times i thought there was a lot of the same color.

Finished Boomtube

I created a cultural meaning in the decorative elements I chose by doing this. The Pokemon Unicorns culture is 21st century pop culture so I drew a lot of text language and popular bands of this century. I incorporated lots of areas of culture. I have a music culture, I have 21st century pop, And I have an art culture. I incorporated them by doing this. The Pokemon Unicorns made that our areas of culture and we all had to put something on our instrument. And I drew symbols for all areas of our culture. I drew at least 2 symbols for each culture.

My individual part in my group's performance to me is kind of confusing because every time i performed in the group, something would be different in my rhythm every time I played it but I think a lot of people couldn't tell the difference because the change was just a little bit different.

My Cultural Vibrations Report

My Cultural Vibrations report will provide information I have discovered about my musical instrument, the boomtube. The report will give interesting information about the design, the comparisons to older instruments [the African drum] and the traditions important to my creation.

                             Close your eyes and imagine a 5’4” PVC tube called the boomtube and is decorated with brightly colored designs all over it and makes one, single, low note. You’ll be shocked to learn my creation is equally a functioning musical instrument because my instrument is “working as it should”. What I mean by this is when you hit my boomtube on the ground it makes the sound of a musical note or tone. My instrument produces the sound of the note “E” when you play it. Whenever some object makes the sound of a musical note or tone, it is considered a musical instrument.

                            Shockingly, my boomtube is a cultural artifact because the instrument has a lot of symbols and logos from my groups [Pokémon Unicorns] culture, “21st Century Pop”. Every symbol on my boomtube comes from the 21st Century. Like the Green Day logo, for example, Green Day is

Something current and is considered pop culture. Green Day is a popular punk rock band that started producing music in 1987 in Berkeley, California. Nowadays a lot of people use texting as a form of communication today so I drew a lot of texting language on my instrument because that’s my group’s common language.

                            This is insane, but my boomtube and the African drum are similar in a lot of ways. They are similar because they are both used as a percussion instrument and represent how percussion instruments have different ways to be played. Also, you have to play both of them with some sort of padding. What I mean by that is you can’t play a drum without animal skin or drum skin. You wouldn’t have anything to hit the drum with. And you need to play the boomtube with a mat. If you don’t, the closed end could break off.

                            It’s hard to believe, but my boomtube and the African drum have a lot of differences. The designs are completely different. The designs on the African drum represent 1930’s pop culture; while the boomtube designs represent 21st Century’s pop culture.

                            Amazingly, my tradition is New Year’s because every year, things become less popular and more popular by the second. Like “Silly Bandz”, for instance. Last year they were really popular at the end of the school year, and then practically died during July, 2010. Who sells them now?! Not Stop & Shop or Wal-Mart. But the designs that are on my instrument now will possibly be unknown in ten years.

                            New Year’s is already celebrated once a year so I’m not going to change when it’s celebrated. It celebrates the changing of years and people get happy about it because new innovations are discovered and made or kids might be excited over a new video game that’s coming out or if they’re going on vacation maybe. The designs relate to the popularity of this year and identifies what’s popular now and what still may be popular a year from now.

                            The significant meaning of my instrument is sharing so everyone will be happy. Let’s say you don’t have an Xbox 360 and your friend has one, you can ask him/her, “May I play?” And your friend could say “yes” and the both of you can play it and no one will be screaming and whining.



                            Other parts to my tradition are special clothing that represents Halloween because my group dresses in all black and it makes me think of Halloween because people will dress in black or be like a vampire or a black cat or something.