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The triangle

The triangle is the European well-known instrument used in symphony orchestra since the eighteenth century (of Turkish origin and undatable) constituted of a cylindrical full steel rod and twice bent to form an open equilateral triangle. It is played with a steel bat (stick) that can be more or less long or thin, to strike it (which increases its resonance).

The gestural technique used for the triangle is to exploit its shape doing a back and forth between two sides of the triangle with the bat (a bit like a ganza or chocalho with similar phrases, but with sometimes the use of rest (no inertia of movement of the grains or jingles)), by positionning near a corner junction. We also use variations of resonance to create accents, by using the carrier hand (using the index to lift the triangle with a string and using the other fingers to mute by pinching). Attention, accent occurs when you let resonate and that's when you pinch that the note is muted (the inverse of a "percussive" strike movement). Different sizes of triangle indicate a destination for large batucada band or interior band, more intimist.

open tone (resonating)

Samba ("forro")

Doubled biguine

Marc De Douvan, October 2005, translation in English: May 2013.