The Music and Dance Of Rara
Analysis

Rara bands can be simple or complex.  On one hand you have a capella  (voice only) charyio-pye or "foot bands." These bands stomp the feet in a marching rhythm that creates the tempo of the song. (Hear this on track 12). At the other end of the spectrum are the Rara bands in Leogane that achieve national reputations by employing brass musicians from konpa (popular dance) bands.  These bands produce catchy melodies at a high volume that can be heard far away. (Hear this on track 18)

The typical Rara orchestra consists of three drums followed by three or more bamboo instruments called banbou or vaksin, some metal horns called konet, and then several waves of percussion players with small, hand-held instruments, and finally a chorus of singers.  Also there is usually a core group of performers--either majò jon (baton majors), or wa and renn (kings and queens) who dance for contributions. 

The drums played in Rara are almost always goatskin drums in the Petwo family.  These drums are strung with cord and tuned by adjusting small pegs in the interlaced cords along the drum body.  The Rara drums must be portable for Rara and must be light enough to carry for miles of walking and playing.  So the manman, segon, and kata of Petwo ceremonial drumming are replaced by a more portable ensemble of manman, kata, and bas.  The first two are single-headed drums, strapped to the body by a cord across the shoulder. A kès (a double-headed goatskin drum played with two sticks) can be used as the kata.  The bas is a hand-held round wooden frame with goatskin stretched across the top and interlacing tuning cords creating a web along the inside of the drum. 

The banbou, or vaksin, are the instruments most immediately associated with Rara music. They are hollowed-out bamboo tubes with a mouthpiece fashioned at one end.  Each banbou is cut shorter or longer so as to produce a higher or lower tone:  bas banbou is long and gives a bass sound, and charlemagne banbou is short and is pitched high.  Other tones fall in the middle. Each player takes the instrument and blows a tone and together the group of vaksin players improvise until they find a pleasing, catchy short riff, each player blowing at a certain point to create a melody in a hocketing technique.  To help their timing, the vaksin players beat a kata part on the bamboo with a long stick, making the instrument both melodic and percussive. 

For more information, read Chapter 1 of my book on Rara. (Excerpted from Elizabeth McAlister, Rara! Vodou, Power, and Performance. University of California Press, 2002, pp. 45-46.)