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Cocobolo Claves are individually handcrafted in a home workshop by indigenous Mexican artisans. Exceptionally good looking, Cocobolo Claves are handmade from the most prized of tropical hardwoods. Exceptionally good sounding, each pair is made of two different woods, cocobolo and koral. By swapping them in your hands, you can change the pitch of the sound. Exceptionally positive in their socio economic and ecologically effects, your purchase of Cocobolo claves supports local artisans, supports sustainable use of valuable local resources, supports ongoing efforts to improve village water systems, sanitation, and local food production, and supports family businesses in the distribution. |
(You can also order them from Songbird Ocarinas). Because they are individually hand made under rustic conditions, the parts of the pair won't match exactly in size or finish. Some have more rounded ends, some more square. Unfortunately, we can't pick through them for custom matches. The finish is generally good, occasionally a scratch mark from the fabrication will be left on the surface. |
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Instead, hold the fingers of your bottom hand cupped and let the bottom clave just rest on top. Shifting the shape of the hollow in your hand below the bottom clave, or striking it in slightly different places, will result in different sounds. There is one sweet spot that will give you the classic, clear, sharp clave sound. This sound cuts right through the thundering sound of a circle of twenty huge African djembe drums so that every single drummer can clearly hear where the one beat is. The clave is the key to a unified sound.
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Cocobolo (Spanish for "phantom log", Cuiramo in Nahuatl, or Dalbergia retusa) is the densest and strongest of the rosewoods. The woods are highly prized. To buy the wood alone in the US costs about the same as what we sell the finished claves for. Cocobolo is the second most dense wood in the world, it has twice the density of walnut, and is more valuable than almost any other hardwood. Koral is equally dense and durable.
With single trees worth thousands of dollars on the world market, pressure to deforest is intense.
The wood used to make claves is picked out from the village firewood supply, or recycled from well-seasoned palapa poles which have been broken in cyclones. The scraps are used for firewood. The additional ecological drain from exporting the wood in the form of claves is essentially zero. Cocobolo Claves, which are exported a backpack load at a time, are a better way for the people to earn a livelihood from their valuable fine hardwoods than exporting raw logs by the boatload at low prices, as has happened in the past. |
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Pair of claves, large—$15 |
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Pair of claves, small—$12 |
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Clave
means "key" in Spanish. Claves are traditionally the 
Used
as palapa supports, cocobolo and koral posts last for ten years or more
buried four and a half feet into the hot, moist tropical earth. I've seen
four inch diameter posts supporting several people in hammocks pulling
from one side—a load which would snap a Douglas fir four by four
off instantly—with almost no deflection.