It is made out of strong, hard metal and can either be handheld or can be mounted on other instruments. When held in the hand, the musician holds the cowbell in the palm of his left hand and strikes the rim of the bell with a wooden stick held in the other hand. When the cowbell is mounted on a stand, the clip on the top of the cowbell is used to fasten it on to a bracket on the timbales stand and both instruments are usually played by the same musician at different points during the song.
The cowbells can be used to make three distinct sounds depending on what part of the instrument is struck. When the flat part of the cowbell is struck horizontally with the tip of the stick, a soft, dry sound is produced. When the shaft of the stick is used to strike the same area, a louder sound can be produced, and when the shaft of the stick is used to strike the mouth of the cowbell, this produces the most powerful sound.
In Cuban music, the cowbell is usually played by the bongo player during the “montuno” section of the song and is guided, as is true for many other instruments, by the clave. The most powerful and distinct strokes of the cowbell are usually heard (for the purpose of dancers) on the 1, 3, 5 and 7 of an 8 count (although there are more complex arrangements of these strokes) where 2 of the strokes correspond to the 2 side of a 2-3 clave. Given that some musical pieces do not have an obvious clave rhythm or have an “implied” clave, some dancers may find it easier to keep on beat when using the distinct sound of the cowbell during the montuno section of a song. Ultimately, each dancer will find it easier to pick out different instruments depending on the song that they are dancing to and should not rely exclusively on one sound to guide their dancing, rather becoming more attuned to the emphasis of each instrument during the different sections of a song in order to make use of the changes in tempo, accentuation and feeling of the music.
