WA-GON — See yamato-koto,
WAHLE KHOHT — Sonorous Substances. Burmah. A tube of bamboo several feet in length is split to form what resembles a pair of tongs. It is shaken and is used as a clapper.
WALDHORN — Cup Mouthpiece. Europe. German for hunting horn. See hunting horn.
WAMBEE — Plucked Strings. Africa. One of the most popular of West African instruments and found distributed over a wide area. Also called the valga. It consists of a box-like sounding-board to the back of which are bound a varying number of canes, the tops extending forward as well as upward. From these canes are stretched fiber strings to the base of the sound-box. In East Africa is found a similar instrument called angra ocwena.
WANIGUCHI or E'SUZU — Sonorous Substances. Japan. A hollow resonant body of metal circular in shape and rather flat. On the upper edges are two rings and just below on either side, a small tubular projection open at the end. It is in various sizes and the larger ones which are hung at the entrance to shrines are furnished with a suspended rope which is used as a beater.
WEI-SHUN Sonorous Substances. China. A very ancient bell made in the shape of a balloon and suspended singly upon a frame through a knob made to suggest a monkey. Small round bells are attached as a tongue and make the sound exceedingly shrill. The Chinese declare that their idea of suspending bells was derived from a certain monkey with a yellowish-gray head, a forked tail, arid an upturned nose, which in rainy weather hangs from the branches of the trees by putting the two ends of its forked tail into its nostrils, thus forming a circle.
WURST FAGOTT — Double-beating Reed. Europe. Also called rackett or cervelas. Sausage bassoon is a prosaic appellation. It consists of a diminutive tube of cylindrical bore wound about several times to make it more compact. The narrow bore conduced to the weakness of the tone. although it was possible for it to be as deep as a bassoon. One instrument four and three-fourths inches high had a continuous passage of about three feet and six inches and its compass was of one octave and the four notes, D to A. The instrument had a false exterior and within the apparent tube were wound the true small tubes.
