Caribbean musical instruments

The güira () is a percussion instrument from the Dominican Republic used in merengue, bachata, and to a lesser extent, other genres such as cumbia. It is made of a metal sheet (commonly steel) and played with a stiff brush, thus being similar to the Haitian graj (a perforated metal cylinder scraped with a stick) and the Cuban guayo (metal scraper) and güiro (gourd scraper). Güira, guayo and güiro all have a function akin to that of the indigenous native maracas or the trap-kit's hi-hat, namely providing a complementary beat.

thumb|50px|right The dhantal (dandtal) is a long steel rod based percussion instrument (sounding similar to the triangle), which was adapted from the iron "bows" which yoked the oxen that pulled the carts on the estates in Guyana, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, other parts of the Caribbean, and Fiji. The original beater (which is called a kartaal/taali) was an actual horseshoe, a shape which is still retained in the modern dhantal's beater. The top of the dhantal may be blunt or tapered to a fine point to allow for greater resonance, and its end is shaped into a circle that rests on the ground