How to Play the Rainstick for Percussion

By Lennon Leppert
Lennon Leppert

Lennon Leppert is a film composer and songwriter. He has worked on projects produced by The Discovery Channel, The History Channel and The Learning Channel. He has had professional recording experience in various genres, including pop, rock, techno, jazz and orchestral. He has played, conducted and coached many orchestras and youth orchestras in the greater Los Angeles area. He has played multiple instruments including trumpet, piano, cello, percussion, drum set and voice, both classical and pop.

Learn tips and techniques for playing the rain stick in this free percussion instruments video clip.

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Video transcription

Hi, my name is Lennon Leppert, this is "How to Play the Rain stick". The rain stick is commonly associated with Native American music. It can be found in a lot of different settings, like most percussion instruments of today, and there are a couple of different ways and techniques of playing it. First of all, most times you will be called to play just a normal roll or fall. You'll just tip it over like that, and let it all run out. There are a lot of different sizes of rain sticks and a lot of different tones because of the size. Another thing sometimes you'll do is you will flip it and just let a couple of the kernels inside to fall, and twist it, if you want to get more of a prolonged effect, it lasts a lot longer, and it gives a cool effect and sound. And that concludes "How to Play a Rain stick".