The “Spickerman Spirit Rattle”
                By Jacob

   
    My instrument is called the “Spickerman Spirit Rattle, “ or a “Shii Shii Gwan,”in the Ojibwe language.  My mom helped me make it.  This instrument was chosen because I like learning about Native American culture.

    The acorns were found in out woods next to our house where we found the handle.  I picked some cool colored string to wrap around the handle.  The string was cut in about 10 inch lengths to hold the acorns and bells.  The rest of the strings were used to wrap the handle.  They were very long.

    After the strings were cut, my mom superglued them to the acorns.  It took a long time for them to dry.  While they were drying my mom  and I took turns wrapping the handle with the colorful string.  The next day the acorn and bell string ends were superglued to the handle of the rattle.  This project took us two days to complete.

    The rattle makes its sound when it gets shaken.  If you shake it hard it has a loud dynamic.  To change the dynamics, the rattle should be shaken softly to get soft dynamics.  It has a woody sound.  Its pitch is high because the bells are very small.  If you shake it fast it makes short bursts of sound and if you shake it slowly you get quieter sounds.  It is usually used to keep a rhythm or a beat in a song.