Boom Drum

A Discussion On Cajon And It’s Place In Music Today

The cajon is becoming, in my opinion, one of the most versatile instruments on the drumming market. It’s now an essential part of almost every working drummer’s arsenal, and for good reason. With the semi recent emergence of a huge number of singer songwriters, the cajon has taken on a relevancy like never before in modern music.

Traditionally the cajon (pronounced Ka’xon which is the spanish word for box) was used largely in Cuba in the Afro-Cuban song/dance style rumba, and in Peru in several Afro-Peruvian genres. It is theorized that it originated in Coastal Peru in the early 1800′s, when slaves of the west and central African origins would create these box shaped instruments out of shipping crates. Since it’s origin, the cajon has gone through many different designs, and continues to evolve to this day. It’s newfound place in modern music has brought even further design changes and tweaks to the original concept. They now come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and are made by many companies.

The modern cajon now looks simply like a wooden box, and commonly comes with a few differnt bells and whistles. The cajon I use is made by Meinl, and has snares behind the front plate helping me to create convincing snare and bass drum tones.

Meinl Cajon

One of the newest features emerging in the realm of cajon’s is the existence of a pedal either in front of, or behind the face plate. This is usually not used in conjunction with snares, and is controlled with a remote bass drum pedal. This allows the player to free up one of their hands that would normally be used to play bass drum accents on the front plate. This also allows the player to use the cajon in more scenarios that would normally require an entire drum set. I often use cajon, and a series of tambourines, shakers, and other percussion tools, to reproduce drumset tones when playing small venues, or just to play quieter. Pictured below is the cajon/pedal setup.

Cajon with Remote Bass Drum Pedal

The cajon can be played in a million different ways. I usually use a drum-set brush in one or both of my hands, a shaker under my right foot, and a tambourine under my left foot. This allows me to add a shaker texture to different sections of music, and a tambourine under the backbeat for choruses. I also often use a shaker in my right hand for certain songs. I posted video of myself playing my cajon setup in a previous entry. This should give you a good idea of what kinds of situations you can bring a cajon to, and a bit more information on it’s use. Have fun playing you’re own cajon!