Description
The instrument, usually six to eight feet long, consists of an upright wooden pole topped with a conical brass ornament and having crescent shaped crosspieces, also of brass. Numerous bells are attached to the crosspieces and elsewhere on the instrument. Often two horsetail plumes of different colors are suspended from one of the crescents; occasionally they are red-tipped, symbolic of the battlefield. There is no standard configuration for the instrument, and of the many preserved in museums, hardly two are alike.
The instrument is held vertically and when played is either shaken up and down or twisted. Sometimes there is a geared crank mechanism for rotating it.
Today the instrument is prominent in the marching bands of the German Bundeswehr, the French Foreign Legion, and in Ottoman military bands. Some folk music features similar instruments based on a wooden staff with jingling attachments.
Read more about this topic: Turkish Crescent
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